Recently, I had a change of heart. More accurately, I had a change of mind. My heart has been telling me for awhile that a year in a half in a dank basement office is a year and a half too long, but my head was having trouble rejecting the free tuition that came with it. As of a couple months ago, I’d planned to tough it out at work and take some classes in the English department to work towards my Masters degree. All of a sudden, though, the free school wasn’t worth it. I won’t go into details because whining isn’t becoming and because I’m afraid of a lawsuit, but suffice it to say, I needed to get out of there. I started looking at other jobs within the University with the hopes that I could stay enrolled in school, but then I started to drift towards AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps is something I’d been considering for years, but it was never the right time to take a year’s long detour off “the path.”
I finally decided that now was as good a time as any and just did it. I sent in a handful of applications to different AmeriCorps projects to see what would come up, and was immediately contacted by KY Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA). A week or so later, we set up an interview, and not long after that I was offered a position. I’ll be working primarily in an indirect capacity—fundraising, recruiting, public engagement, grant-writing, and the like. I’ll be working in 3 different offices that span 6 counties in Kentucky and I can’t wait.
With a week left at work, the Department of Environmental Health deemed our office unfit for entry, and sealed off the entrances over the weekend. They’d already cleaned out the majority of the mess from the flood, but mold had crept up the walls at least 30 inches. They ripped out the linoleum and tore down the drywall. It was (is) a mess. Knowing I’d likely not have a chance to return to my desk, I broke in anyway on Monday afternoon and cleaned out my area. And then developed an upper respiratory infection a few hours later. Worth it.
A week later, I left work for good, packed up the car and drove to Kathy’s house in Morrow. I had an early flight out of Dayton the next morning and didn’t want to wake up at 4am to drive from Louisville. Spending the night in Morrow meant having to put up with the ghosts and serial killers that undoubtedly hide in all the dark corners of the farmhouse (and there are many) but it was worth the extra few hours of sleep. Saturday morning, I dragged myself out of bed around 6am and headed up to the Dayton International Airport. Dayton to O’Hare and O’Hare to Sea-Tac. After arriving in Sea-Tac, I caught a bus to Anacortes, then a ferry to Orcas Island. I arrived right as the sun was setting, and the view from the bow was epic.
So now I’m spending some time with the Orkilians and so far having a blast. I went to camp nearly every summer from the time I was 6 until 14, but I never got attached to a place the way people are to Orkila. And it’s not hard to see why. The kids have already left for the summer, so camp is mostly deserted. It’s quiet and gorgeous and a welcome respite from my mold-infested shithole of a basement office cubicle. Which I never have to return to again…
Thursday morning I’m heading back east and beginning a new leg of my epic vacation of awesome. I’ll pick up Hal and Dan C. at the airport in Cincinnati and then drive down to Louisville to get Cliff. The 4 of us will then drive further south and further west to a campsite in Indiana. My dad turns 50 this weekend, so the family is celebrating on a campsite in the Hoosier National Forest and the guys kindly agreed to come along. Next, back up to Morrow for a few more nights, and then the boys return home. I’ve got about a week to pack and move and then I’m headed to Atlanta for PSO training for AmeriCorps.
I expected to have some hesitations about abandoning the old plan and embarking on a new one, but I’m more excited than anything else. At the very least, it’ll make for some good stories.