Three Months Out

It's a strange thing, when you're back, it's hard to look back.
I had always suspected as much. People in my town would tell me how their emails and phone calls went unanswered when they tried to reach the volunteer who had left. There were a lot of stories like that-volunteer leaves, never to be heard from again. And near the end more than one volunteer jokes they will never attempt a good deed ever again, that their allotment of humanitarianism has been used up for the rest of their lives.
But we didn't want to vanish off the face of the earth. We didn't want our friends and colleagues to question our fealty. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, Skype and Facebook, keeping in touch with our dear Azerbaijani friends has been easy. Easy say "Happy New Year!" or "How was your vacation?"
But part of it hasn't been easy- staying connected to the American experience in Azerbaijan. By that, I mean that I could not read a single Azerbaijan volunteer blog. I tried. But I couldn't do it. Maybe the struggles are too familiar, something I'm not willing to feel again so readily. Perhaps I am reading the subtext behind each line, knowing the things I never wrote. Maybe it is the residue of all the things I did that I didn't want to do-all the times I smiled when I wanted to cry, or tried to brush off offense, or be a stronger person than I was. You never want to feel some of those things again, those things the current volunteers are doing right this very moment, and I fear if I read their heartbreaks that mine will come crashing back through--I want to be finished with that part.
I miss Azerbaijan. I miss my friends. I miss speaking Azerbaijani, the walking to the store and laundry hanging in the breeze. But I do not miss being a volunteer. I do not miss realizing that I am not even 10% close to being able to be selfless for a single day, let alone two years. Which brings me to my final judgment of my time. All those times that I was disappointed, the frustrations, the fears...they were not because of Azerbaijan or it's people. I mean, some of them were, but for the most part they were merely the big dirty mirror by which I learned the of the flaws in myself. That I am not as selfless as I wish. That my self-esteem could be stronger in the face of disapproval or rudeness. But for every time my inability to handle such difficulties frustrated me to tears, like a muscle aching under strain, I did get the tiniest bit stronger. I'm still getting stronger.
And so this week I could enjoy Hillary and Joey's post about the computer-ray-eating-cactus, and practice my Azeri to my Azerbaijani cat. I walked into a lamp shop whose owners were Turkish and had to go hide in the sconce room because their accents made me weepy and nostalgic. I could watch Egypt and think of Baku without bitterness, but hope.
Perhaps now is the time to go back to my novel, and begin editing again.