Overcoming Fear

As the day inches nearer my fear begins to increase. I still find it difficult to believe that I will be departing to Morocco in less than a week. When I studied in France, I had no fear before I left. I had been to France before, studied the language for 8 years, knew several french people and had studied the country. France was not so different from America in many ways. For me, Morocco is a mystery, an unknown. I will be learning in a new language in a very short amount of time, I will be learning a new culture, and I will be required to assist a small town/village with so many questions...

I am very excited for this opportunity, and I feel it is the right thing to do and for me with every fiber of my being, but I still fear that I won't learn the language quickly or well enough, that the people I am to assist will know more than me, etc. Probably silly fears, but fears non-the-less. Obviously I was nominated and picked and accepted for a reason. Obivously something in my application and interview spurred the Peace Corps to put faith in me. My friends and family and colleagues also all have tremendous faith in me. I only hope to make everyone proud, to make myself proud, to make a difference.

I know these next two years will be difficult, I am not naive in that view. I also know that I have worked in many difficult positions and that I have overcome many difficulties in my personal life and in myself. I am strong, and it will be that strength that will see me through. I have a certain tenacity when it comes to accomplishing and completing great goals in my life. I have also grown up in a fairly independent manner, I have an open mind, and I have a desire to learn and to help. I know I will be fine, but knowing and believing are two different animals, haha.

I'm still coming to terms with that fact that I leave in a mere 5 days on a 6am flight to Philadelphia before heading off to Morocco. Of course I wish I had read more books, studied more Arabic, taken a class or two...but that time has passed. I know I can do this, :). In the words of one of my employers: "She always tries to say she can't, then when forced to, she realizes she can." That is from another job who told me: "This will be the toughest summer you'll ever love.". I seem to take on a lot of employments that tell me that...haha.

I will end this post with a poem I will always take to heart and a favorite photo taken in Ireland:

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.