Tag Archives: poetry

A Feeling I Cannot Shake

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Something is off.  I’m doing well in my Final Site.  This is something else.  Not the strangeness of the place, the people, or the food.  This has to do with home.  I know most people would simply call it homesickness.  But that sounds to simple to me.  This is more.  To be honest…even if I Early Terminated right now and went back “home” to Colorado, I would have this feeling.  It’s an intense detachment.  I’m seeing all my connections fade.  I should have know this was inevitable…but was there even a way to accept it before?  I don’t believe so.

I don’t talk with friends back home very often.  When i do, I either feel a pang in my stomach or can’t find much to talk about.  The same, strange enough, is happening with my family.  Our conversations feel shorter.  Through no fault of anyone, all of the relationship’s I’ve built up for 23 years are fading.  I guess that is what happens when you are an ocean and and continent away.  It’s a pailful experience   I didn’t notice it until my kinda-relationship back home was put on hold.  This was also expected…but that doesn’t make it any easier.

I find myself relying on the support structure that I’ve built over the last ten weeks with other Peace Corps Volunteers.  Given, it is a strong support system.  I have no fear of going without advice and help.  It’s the transition of going from my usual support system to something entirely different that is getting at me.  I have these people who I regarded as immovable pillars in my life back home.  To know that I can not rely on the pillars in strange…and awkward.  I miss my friends.  I miss my family.  I miss my special someone.  I will always love them.  24 months and counting…

A poem I wrote today:

Inescapable 

Losing My Pug

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Young PugIt seems so unfair.  Our family had two dogs as I grew up.  Cassidy was the old, larger mutt.  Tocina was the younger, smaller pug.  When Cassidy passed in November, it wasn’t exactly a surprise.  She had survived the cancer far longer than we could have expected.  The hardest part was her quick deterioration.  I was 1,300 miles away when I got the news.  I never got to say goodbye.  That was the hardest part.  I never remembered to cry.  I didn’t cry for her until yesterday–when everything was unleashed.

Tocina was never exactly healthy.  She was allergic to so much that we had to make her food out of a strange mixture of oatmeal and turkey.  It did her well, but we still had to keep her on steroids her entire life.  Considering I will only be gone for 27 months and Tocina is 8 years old, I expected she might still be alive when I get back.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  A few months ago, Tocina desperately needed her nails clipped.  It was impossible to hold her down.  The vet put her under anesthesia to clip them.  When she came out of it, she suffered a stroke.  She suffered a second stroke a few months later.

My little Tocina has not been the same since then.  Then, last week, something started happening.  It was a small shake, like she was suffering from Parkinson’s   It would only last for a few seconds.  But, as the days carried on, it only got worse.  Yesterday, it was quite violent and lasted for 10-20 minutes at a time.  She was losing control of her bowels and we were finding blood.  Despite her youth, we knew it was time.  At the vet, my mom held her as they gave her the relaxing shot.  A few minutes later, she was a dead weight.  My mom couldn’t hold her up, so we put her on my lap.  I put one hand on her head and the other under her–so I could feel her heart.  It was relaxed.  Then they gave her the shot.  Her heart gave a single beat….then stopped.

Tocina