to helen : the shortest summer

I’m thinking of you a lot in these days leading up to service but also just a lot in the past month while you were adventuring and leaving Paris like me. I hope that your travels went well and visiting Kuwait to see your best friend was wonderful and that leaving behind Paris and Clement wasn’t too difficult. My heart hurts just thinking about how you must feel.

Within a couple days of getting back, I went up to Hamilton College in upstate NY where I went to school to visit old friends and to attend graduation. It was so so nice to see people and momentarily fall back in familiar college rhythms. I forgot how tiny my universe once was and how satisfying it can be to be surrounded constantly by familiar faces. Of course, after a couple of days, I also remembered the debilitating feeling of claustrophobia and suffocation that also comes with the small community and all the reasons why I love and miss Paris so much. But incredible visit quand même filled with bonfires and long hugs and so many loved ones.

I’m back in New Jersey right now, already struggling in the summer heat (what the hell am I going to do once we get to Burkina Faso?) and definitely struggling with being at home. My mother and I constantly bicker about going to Peace Corps and money and a million little petty things. I’m not insured so I’m not allowed to drive at home, and I miss the easy mobility and independence that came with living in Paris. Suburban life really blows sometimes.

But I’m running off to NYC soon, as soon as I get over this ear infection and cold, to see friends before I leave and I’m excited to get away from home for a little bit.

The influx of emails from Peace Corps is very invigorating in the midst of all of this and I’m excited to finally finally start this thing that we’ve seen inching slowly towards us for the past seven or eight months. Terrified some days, but mostly just impatient.

Very excited to be reunited with you in Philadelphia! I miss you a lot. I don’t think I ever told you or expressed to you enough how calming you were for me to have in Paris. Our shared paths, our common anxieties, your easy grace, your intelligence, your daring, your utter irreverence towards propriety—everything about your being was just very reassuring to be around and I miss you.

Anyway, hope all is well in Nebraska. Send all my love to Gail and Kent. How are things on your end? So many packing questions for you that I can’t even formulate coherently right now. Let’s talk soon. Bisous