A Good Day For Sleeves

Today was a good day for sleeves and it wasn't because of the cold that has set in. I had my last class with my 10th form students today and I just couldn't fight back the tears when it all became quiet and they thanked me for my time with them. I love all my students and teachers at my school, but how I love them is different because love needs that. It needs to find different pathways. With this class, I loved them from the start. The first time we met, I felt their energy and saw in each of their faces such great potential.

I made them a short video to thank them for being such great students and in this video, I included a picture of them from the first year that I started teaching. They were so young and silly and now they're older and more mature (and much taller). I am so glad that I could witness their growth and be a small part of their lives here in Ukraine.

So yes, it was a good day for sleeves, but particularly the sleeves attached to the sweater which I have hand washed, laid on heaters, and worn for two years. I think they were waiting for this moment, preparing and stretching so they could fit far enough over my hands to wipe my eyes from the hardest kind of tears. Is life always this bittersweet?

I know I'll come back to Ukraine. Our heartstrings will forever be entangled. I know it's not my native country, but it has been my home for two years, and a good one, too. I have gotten used to it. I have learned its customs, I have drunk its conyak, prepared and eaten its varenyky, corrected its lack of article grammar mistakes, ridden on its busses, slept (or laid awake on) its night trains, nodded my head through confusing Russian conversations, eaten whatever anyone wanted me to eat, sang Ukrainian harmonies with my teachers in the forest, and found so many dear friends. It has all become a part of me, just like all of the other homes I've found over the years. Homes may not always be tangible, but I have marked their places on my map so I will never be lost.

Don't be fooled. I rolled up my long sleeves and quit being a baby to take this photo...

Universe One, Two, Three (and Counting)

Being in a different country is like living in a parallel universe. The similarities and differences are felt but not always seen. They creep up on you sometimes and when they do, you start to see things very clearly. Things you never really noticed before. Things about America, my home sweet poem. I'll even remember strange things that I never actually said back home, but have now come into my life, like proverbs.

My last days in New York seem like this still image that I imagine staying the same until I get back, after the Peace Corps. Maybe this idea isn't too far from the truth. When I left in September, there was an old washing machine on my mom and dad's front lawn. When I talked to them a couple months later, it was still there, sinking into the grass. I was convinced that when I came home two years later, it would still be there, (or sunken halfway to China, at least). It has since been moved and my safe little sheltered still image has now become a motion film. For example: (1) my sister finished graduate school, passed her exam, and is now looking for a social work job; (2) Hurricane Sandy destroyed my Mom's car and she now has a new one; and (3) My younger siblings and cousins are growing up!

Because I am so far away, I thought that my old universe would be on pause until I return. Part of it is, since I'm living a different life. My new Ukrainian universe will hold me over until my triumphant return (bells, parades, tears, bottle clanks please). Sometimes, though, I peak back at my old self, and the family and friends that surrounded me, and in doing so, I have created another universe--one that is a combination of old and new, change and stagnation, knowing and unknowing. That's when I realize that even though they are thousands of miles away, life is still moving, even though I'm not there to witness it first hand. So, I've figured it out. I'm living in three universes at once: Home, as in my still life in New York; Home, as in where my body rests on my uncomfortable bed in Ukraine; and Home, in limbo, browsing the different worlds of my existence--whether it's via facebook or my own dreams.

I can definitely count more than three universes in my life...There's the one where I daydream about the real possibilities of me going to Mars to start a colony (check this out and you'll understand me better), the one where I don't leave my apartment for two days, the one where I can only go to sleep if I watch Star Trek: Next Generation, the one where I obsessively look up graduate school programs and wonder about my future, the one where I pinch myself for not being able to be completely in the moment (because of all the other universes pulling at my heart strings?!!?!?!).

Is this a disease? If it is, I've got it and I've been living with it my whole life. So, if you suffer from the constant attention that parallel universes demand, embrace it. It's an adventure.