I am back at school after Thanksgiving break. It was really a good break, and I'm going to write about it, but first I just want to babble about.. who knows? There are some chores and homeworks to do, but there are also some that I have already done, so I feel justified in taking a little time to myself.
Things are going so well, and I'm so happy, but things are also going so terribly, and I don't know how to deal. They get blocked out to preserve my little happiness, and then threaten to erupt. My dad... Mercedes and Tom... the future, sometimes. What is going to happen after this year? I've found a place that I love and people in it that I love, but those dynamics are once again going to have to change. I wish I could pause everything just as it is now, but I wished that once in high school and that failed miserably, and things aren't looking good for this time either. Still, I'd like to, and just run away from the horrors and hide in Albany with my contrived family and be coddled and stay.
I made a decision a few weeks ago. It's still not something I am 100% comfortable talking about, but I need to make sure to write it down. I'm not going to forget the gist of it, but I need to remember how I feel exactly when I regret this decision later.
I need to help people. I need to spend my life caring for those less fortunate, people in failed states with no food or shelter, people who need help and are ignored. I have to. It's no longer a desire, it's an irrevocable obligation. I must. I'm going to try to get into the state department, and if I fail I am going to a global south state and I am going to do anything that needs doing. I am going to care for the sick, teach children, weave nets, ANYTHING. Because I am young and relatively wealthy and healthy and intelligent enough and I can, therefore I must. And I am going to spend my life doing things that must be done because that is the only future I can justify to myself.
This means I am never going back to Japan. I love it so, and I still become so homesick, but... I can't justify it, because to visit would be unjust. How dare I spend money on a plane ticket there when I could instead go to Africa and work to help people? I will never do it. So I'm never going to be able to go back. I don't know what this means for a family, either. I want a family. It's something that always has been and always will be important to me. But I'm not going to put children in harms way. I'm not going to have a stable home in one place. I'm going to move as I'm needed, for as long as needed. Forever. I love the US, but this means I won't be here, either. The need is far greater elsewhere. All my great patriotism, wasted.
I dread my future, but I anticipate it too. At least I know what I must do now, instead of the nebulous not knowing of before. But I'm not happy about it. The drawbacks and risks are too great for that. But I have to. There is no longer a choice. There is no longer anything but preparation for my destiny. I didn't think I had one, but I do. It would be wrong for me to stay. I'm only staying now because I think I might be able to help better with a degree, and even that rational logic seems flimsy in the face of the need now, the pull to help. I am going to help hundreds of people, people that I've never met, in a place I've never been. I am not going to be rich, or famous, or even just middle-class, but I WILL have that.
I am so scared by this decision. I've never been one for strong feelings one way or another. I've been ambivalent about most things. But I had to go to Japan. If I had had a choice I would never have left the country. And now I have to help, and I have to do it until I die, and it's only the second time I've had to do something, and I'm scared. I don't know where I'm going or what I'm going to do exactly or what language I'm going to need to learn and if I'm going to get myself killed or sick and if I'll see my family and friends after I go. But I must.
I am going to help people with my life.
Post a Comment