Chasing New Dreams
The last three weeks have been quite the emotional rollercoaster for me, but they were also very revealing and healing. I found clarity on my wants and desires for the future.
It all started with an invitation. An invitation to serve in the Peace Corps. This has been a lifelong dream of mine — to encounter and serve the poor abroad. It was something I wanted to do since high school. In my childhood bedroom, you can see the Peace Corps logo on the vision board taped to my light pink walls. I prayed for days, months, and years for this dream to come true, and it finally did. I got the invitation to serve in Peru. When the invitation appeared in my inbox, I felt an overwhelming wave of excitement and ecstasy. I finally achieved a life goal of mine, and it was thrilling. But eventually the excitement wore off. It was replaced with this feeling of fear and dread. I couldn’t shake this feeling that this wasn’t right for me. At least not right now.
I applied for the Peace Corps two years ago. And in those two years of waiting, my life changed. I graduated from college and got my first big girl job. I stepped up as a leader in several nonprofits in my community (Court Appointed Special Advocate, Prison Education Project, and Rapid Response Housing Solutions) and the young adult ministry at my parish. And I experienced what it’s like to fall in love. In those two years, I changed. Now, I have new dreams I want to pursue — dreams that are equally as exciting as the Peace Corps.
I decided to decline the invitation to serve. Right now, I want to dedicate and invest more of my time to helping my community first before traveling abroad. Though it was uncomfortable for me to change my life plans, I have learned to ride the waves of change and embrace discomfort this year. I am in a season of transition — letting God and my heart guide me through the ebbs and flows of life. If I am not doing Peace Corps, then what’s next? Well, I’m off to writing personal statements for graduate school to pursue a career in Healthcare Policy and Management. Though there are still a lot of uncertainty with the new path that I will be embarking on, I am excited about chasing this new dream. Stay tuned for more updates on my grad school application journey.
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Emily
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