breaking up is hard to do

For a while now things have been kind of a mess here – my mom would argue that it’s been bad since I arrived, but she might be biased. To my attentive blog readers you may have noticed that bad things just keep happening in my life here and despite everything I’m glad to say I’ve kept my head up along the way. Suddenly though, the time has come when this camel’s load has become all too heavy and I’ve really taken a hard look at how far and wide my ‘happy moments’ have been scattered. And possibly much to your surprise (frankly I surprised myself with this!) I’ve decided it’s my time to leave Liberia. I’ve been sacrificing a lot to be here and have been investing a great deal of my time and energy but I don’t feel that the progress that my volunteer efforts are making is enough to warrant staying any longer. Please know that I’m personally perplexed to be walking away after only a few months as my intentions were to stay much longer, but simultaneously I’m eager to have the opportunity to see what life will throw at me next! I’ve learned so much from this experience and perhaps because I’m departing so abruptly I’m already reflecting on what an amazing, intense and self-defining adventure I’ve been privileged to have

I want to thank all of you who offered your support during the past months. Your emails of encouragement, blog post comments sharing your appreciation of my trials and triumphs, and your donations that significantly helped off-set the expenses of leaving America to try and do a little good in the world proved to be priceless commodities toward my success. Literally, I could not have come this far without your continual generosity, kindness, love and advice from afar. I have no regrets about this journey and look forward to sharing my fresh skills with a new organization and community.

Because ticket fares are set to drastically increase after this coming week and flights only operate out of here a couple days each week, I’ll be leaving Liberia on Monday (in 2 days) at 4am to return to the States. I’ll be regrouping with friends and family for a bit and will be pursuing non-profit job possibilities in the metro Detroit area. Thanks again for tuning in folks, I hope to see many of you in the coming weeks.

The world is your oyster!

(I will post sometime next week once I’ve gotten my footing so y’all will know I’m safe and sound!)