Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Whatever happened to Ali's Blog?

Something happened to me during my Peace Corps service that I didn't foresee happening. This whole crazy experience became my life. I'll explain.

When I first arrived in Peru, everything was different and so new that it was all novel. The simplest activity like going to the store would end up being a hilarious incident that I couldn't wait to come home and share it with those who read my blog. I detailed my day to day life, my vacations, my work, and my ups and downs. Over time, my entries became less about all the stuff that was new a weird around me, and more about interesting events and broad ideas I'd been thinking about.

This was my first venture into the blogosphere, and I learned a lot. I learned that you cannot share every thought and fleeting emotion, unless you are really prepared to have the whole world know about it. The more I got used to my life in Peru, the less I wanted to share publically. All the sudden, the things that really stood out to me when I sat down to write my blog, was not about my next door neighboor and the pig head she gave me as a present, but about the way my boss talked to me and how much it upset me. Now, I couldn't very well write on a public blog that my boss was hurting my feelings. She could read it and then I'd we'd have even bigger problems.

Around January, I started thinking really hard about what I wanted to do after Peace Corps. I figured, all my friends back home would want to know too. I thought many times about writing a blog about what my plans for after I closed my service, but the problem was, those plans changed every week. I didn't want to make my readers go through the same roller coaster ride I was of trying to decide if I would stay in Peru or return to the states. Making a lot of these decisions was deeply emotional, and I didn't want to revel my deepest feelings.

Another big change since January is that I started dating again. Of course, this took over a large chunk of what I thought about throughout the day and also dominated the majority of emotions. I can't think of anything more terrifying than coming home from a date and blogging about it. Writing that I went out with such and such guy and that I really liked him or disliked him, and then having him google me and find what I had written would be mortifying. I realized I'm a lot more private than I thought. There are so many things that are happening in my life that I just don't want shared.

Well, what about things I don't mind sharing? There was a ton of stuff I could have written about while never touch the subject of my future, dating or any other emotion. But when I did write while all that other stuff was going on, it felt like a half truth. What was real and on my mind everytime I sat down to write, was stuff I didn't want the entire world knowing. I instead turned to personal emails. I've been writing a lot to my close friends and family and they have been helping me through the big emotional stuff.

So to the rest of you who do not recieve personal emails, I am sorry you've been out of the loop. I will say that as of now, I plan to finish my service some time in august, travel and hang out for a few months and return to California in the fall. From there, I don't really know what I want to do. The world is literally at my feet and I can go in any direction. I'm not necesarily done with blogging, I may find the whole readjustment back to the US compelling and start sharing more stories. I just know for the time being, I want to figure some stuff out on my own, before I open my life back up to the public.