The nightmare

Scientists say that humans dream every night, but I usually don’t remember mine. Once in a while especially when I’m under a lot of stress, I tend to have vivid dreams. Two nights ago I had a horrible dream that freaked me out.

In my dream, I had just arrived back in the US after finishing Peace Corps. I went to Davenport Iowa, my hometown, and went to my house, where I rang the doorbell. My mother answered, and she was surprised to see me. And then she said in Russian, “Why are you here? This isn’t your home.” In addition to my mother, random people from my past and present also appeared in my dream which made it even weirder. A fraternity brother, a childhood soccer buddy, a roommate from college and even my site mate from Kazakhstan told me that I shouldn’t be in America, and that my place wasn’t there. It was by far the worst nightmare I’ve had in a long time, worse than my nightmares based on this movie which kept me up for 2 days and is the main reason I sleep on my fold out couch instead of my bed.

I think I know the catalyst of my dream. Earlier in the week the Kaz-20’s, the group of volunteers whom I came with to Kazakhstan with in 2008, came one step closer to learning the exact day that we’d be leaving Kazakhstan. All of our names were picked from a hat, and this determined the order of who got to pick what day to leave. As much as I like Kazakhstan, I had been looking forward to this day for a long time. It exceeded my expectations unlike the day during our training when we learned where were going to spend 2 years of our lives. Although volunteers weren’t physically present at the event and were notified by email, it felt more “draft like” to me. Maybe this is because the names were randomly picked out of a hat while our skills, experience, personal interests, language ability, personal preferences and characteristics were used to match volunteers with their organizations and schools.

Out of the 44 volunteers that are left in my group, I currently have the 19th pick to decide when I get to leave Kazakhstan. The dates are somewhere between the 1st through the 12th of November. Because it is common for volunteers to end their service early to start work or to attend grad or law school my number may rise even higher. I may even be one of those people.

With a little bit of math I determined that I have as of today I have a maximum of 150 days before I touch American soil again. It would be less except there is return trip of epic proportions that needs to happen. 150 days sounds so deceptively far away, but yet so close.

On day 151, I’ll have to move on with the next phase of my life. What doesn’t worry me is finding a job, adjusting back to American life or any of that stuff. What worries me the most is finding my place, the best place for me, a place that I can call home.