I've never been homesick before in my life, so naturally it took a while for me to recognize the emotion I'm feeling as homesickness.
The first week of Teach for America training flew by, and it left me spinning in circles Friday night.
Seriously.
I miss my friends and my cat, and the coffee shops and restaurants I'm so used to going to in Phoenix. These emotions, when compounded with all the teaching techniques and social justice information I learned in the past week, have been lot to process--so I've been focusing one thing this weekend:
Being unapologetically myself.
I'm pretty good at this when I'm with people I already know, but whenever I'm thrown in with a group of new people, I have a hard time owning my unique likes and dislikes.
For example, I dislike going out and I really dislike most pop music--but it's hard to make friends and bond with people who are SUPER into these things.
I'd rather sit around and play Cards Against Humanity while drinking wine and listen to Sufjan Stevens or Iron and Wine than go bar hopping.
So I'm working on owning that part of myself and hopefully will find some friends who like the same things as I do.
As I sit writing this, I'm in Dallas sipping a hot cup of coffee and listening to David Ramirez. I've been a lot of places in the past month and a half. Chicago, Denver, Salt Lake City, Louisville, Phoenix, Ecuador, Prescott...and soon I'll be trading Dallas, Texas for Tulsa, Oklahoma.
It's been a whirlwind of a summer thus far, and everyone has been asking me "how do you travel so much?" or "wow! Why so much traveling?"
Sky Harbor feels like home.
Only one of these trips was in my plans before April 25th, and that plan was Ecuador. Even then, I only ended up on the Ecuador mission trip I just returned from because I was unable to go last August. All of these trips have otherwise been planned in the past month and a half.
When I found out I was accepted to Teach for America, I made plans to go to Chicago to help Jackie move home from Phoenix before moving to NYC. I had money saved up to go to Iceland in the fall, but as a teacher, I won't have the ability to take two weeks off of work to go and do that.
So I chose to help a friend move, and then I took advantage of the fact that I was on the opposite side of the country (Illinois) and decided to use that trip to spend some time on a train and some time visiting a few other friends who had offered to host me.
To Denver
I had plans to return to Phoenix after Denver and Salt Lake City, but I found out my great uncle had metastasized cancer while in Denver. My parents made plans to drive to Kentucky to say their goodbyes, and I changed my end-of-trip flight from Phoenix to Louisville.
I stayed in Louisville for about a week with my parents, and we spent most of it with my great aunt and great uncle, sitting, talking, and watching tv game shows.
While I was road-weary and just wanted to be home, I'm glad I took the time to go to Kentucky and visit him because he passed away while I was in Ecuador.
I'm sad that he passed away--he was like a grandfather to me--but I know his death was painless and clouded in elderly dementia. He had forgotten he had cancer, and often times would forget within the same day that we had visited him earlier in the day. He lived a long life, passed away peacefully in his sleep, and I'm grateful I was able to see him one last time.
Soon after returning from Kentucky, I turned around and went to Ecuador on a mission trip (I'm talking more about that in a travel blog post). After Ecuador, I was in Phoenix for a whopping four days and then I boarded a plane to Dallas, where I currently am.
Dallas is my last chance to experience a bit of peace and rest before I start an intense five week training program with Teach for America in Tulsa, so I'm reveling in this last bit of real vacation. If you need me, you can find me by the pool or eating tacos with Hannah.
And there you have it--I've traveled some 15,000 miles in the past five weeks or so. While I love traveling and visiting my friends, I'm eagerly awaiting July 23 when I return to Phoenix (for good) so I can spend more than four days with my cat, cousin, parents, friends and favorite coffee shops. For now, I've got five weeks of living in a brand new city up ahead of me.
