I’m 23 and I have no idea what to do with the rest of my life.

I think it’s insane how people can know what they want to do day in and day out for 40 plus years.

What if you choose something that you don’t like? You can’t really just change halfway through life. Well I guess you can, but most just suffer through those abysmal 9-to-5 cubicle jobs.

I don’t think my parents would be too thrilled if they helped pay for college and I decided to be a hobo. Just a hunch. I know I enjoy helping others better their own situation, and I really loved the opportunity I had when I studied abroad in Cape Town, South Africa. It was the experience of a lifetime. That’s what everyone told me it would be and it was.

So I graduate in about a week, then what? Grad school? Nope, I’m done with my schooling. But you can still learn even if you are not in the ‘classroom.’ Everyday life, friends and your surroundings are all a form of a classroom. You learn from everything surrounding you. Most of the time I find myself starving for life and creation, saturated with both internal destruction and the destruction happening in the outside world.

I have decided on the next phase of my life. I have been accepted into the Peace Corps and nominated to go back to Africa, this time, to french-speaking West Africa. I am leaving sometime in January to do something, not sure what.

It sounds great, the experience of a lifetime right? They call it the hardest job you’ll love. Am I excited? You bet I am. I don’t have to face the real world here. And the thing is, what I’ll be doing will be more of a real world experience than anything I could possiblly do here. I am so excited to go back to Africa and I can’t wait to find out what I’ll be doing.

But you know what? I have a few secrets about going to the Peace Corps. Secrets are only the silent face of fear after all, and I know too well the feeling of granite that grows from my throat down to my toes. I look around me and all I see is fear, a whole society built out of fear. But the world isn’t just out there, it’s in your heart.

In all honesty I’m scared about the Peace Corps. I’m not scared of actually going and getting a disease, dying or anything like that. I’m scared that I’ll be forgotten by everyone as soon as I disappear from the horizon of my friends’ daily lives. What if everyone forgets about me when I’m gone? Twenty-seven months is such a long time.

I’d like to think I’m not forgotten as soon as I disappear from my friends’ daily lives. Sometimes it’s easier to hold on to distant people that way. It’s easier, but you don’t always leave them room to change without you.

My mind is a loud jangle of questions now. What will happen when I meet up with my past after I’ve been gone from it for a while? I am afraid that the doors will close on me when I leave, that I will return home and find no room saved for me from everyone.

So what do I do? Stay here so I won’t lose the friendships? Nope. I will go and enjoy my experience of a lifetime in Africa because everyone that I care about will be here enjoying life in the way they wish to experience it. Face your fears and go enjoy life the way you want to.