Holland

Holland is a great town. There are sandy beaches, a beautiful lake, tall trees, fresh air, and at least some cultural heritage. What I like most about Holland is that all the people who support and care about me can be found here (or at least nearby). These amazing people include Mary T who drove six hours round trip to come get me from the airport with my mother, Dan and Diana who are always ready to come play a round of cards, and Aunt Mary who always amazes me with how much she cares, just to name a few.

This trip home, however, has been somewhat spoiled by what is going on in my life and it has left me feeling anxious and frustrated. The major problem is that I don’t know why I am here. Am I here on a short term visit or am I here for a more extended stay? This question stems from the absolute silence coming from the Peace Corps Placement Office. I am nominated for a project leaving in late October and it is likely that I will be invited on to a 27-month mission in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, likelihood is not certainty and there is a possibility that my project could be significantly postponed. So what will I do then? Do I get a job? Do I try to get into grad school? Do I just wait around?

So I sit here in Holland living out of my mother’s basement with no purpose, and no plans past next weekend. It is a college graduate’s nightmare. Not knowing why I am here has affected all of my plans and activities. I feel paralyzed by a sense of powerlessness. Should I make arrangements to visit friends and family I will not see for three years or schedule job interviews? What do I tell other people about my future plans? My mother keeps telling me that God is teaching me patience, but considering I was originally told this information would arrive in sometime in April I think I am entitled to a little anxiousness.

Against the good advice of probably every psychologist, I have been hiding from my problems by staying busy. Since arriving at home my time has been divided between landscaping the Church Parsonage, baby sitting, mowing lawns, volunteering at the city mission, and re-decorating my little brother’s bedroom. My mother had always planned on redoing Aaron’s bedroom once he left for college, along with about 18 other household projects. However, this particular project was quickly moved to the top of the priority list when my mother arrived home from work to discover that I had ripped all the wallpaper off the walls. Because I volunteered to do the majority of the labor, I was co-opted onto the decorating committee where I obstinately refused to lift a single paintbrush unless I was allowed to paint something colorful. My suggestions for variations on purple, blue and yellow were quickly vetoed by the family matriarch. The deadlock was eventually broken when we agreed upon a good color for the back wall. Sorry Aaron, I am not telling what color it is you will have to come home and see it for yourself.

My work at the City Mission has also been quite eventful. Everyday the Mission makes the rounds of all the local thrift stores picking up all the junk that even the thrift stores can’t sell. I estimate that 80-90% of the stuff donated to thrift stores eventually ends up at the mission. Once it arrives there, the men living at the mission sort through all the clothes and throw them into massive compactors which crush the clothing into big fabric bricks. These are then exported to a wholesaler in Canada who ships them to poor African nations where the clothes are sold to African merchants who sell it on the streets. This dumping of old American clothing on developing nations destroys domestic textile industry, prevents job creation and only serves to increase foreign dependency. On the other hand, what else can we do with it? At least someone is wearing it. Nothing like a little moral ambiguity to get you up in the morning.

I am working there because there is so much clothing coming in from the thrift stores that the compactors can’t keep up and the growing mountain of used textiles has consumed about one third of the workroom and blocked a major shipping door. The people I have met at the mission could fill a blog post all by themselves. Overall it is a pretty unhappy bunch. There are guys convicted of DUI’s doing their 30 hours of community service, guys who got stuck in the recession and had no where else to turn, and guys who divide their time between working at the mission, AA, and meeting with parole officers. The stories are even more sobering as I consider my own awkward life situation.

I am going to keep blogging as I find out more about my future. Pray that the FedEx man comes soon with a big packet for me!