I mean, yeah. The title pretty much says it all.
You mean you haven’t ever been last-minute invited to a stranger’s mountaintop elopement that required you to off-road your brand new vehicle across five-plus miles of rough terrain?
No? That’s just me? Well.
Well, I’ve lived in northern Arizona for roughly a week now, which means I’m overdue for a trip to the Grand Canyon.
Hi. So. I moved to Flagstaff, Ariz., for a new job!
Everything happened so slowly and so quickly at the same time. Talk about “hurry up and wait,” right? I applied for, interviewed for and informally accepted a job in the span of about 48 hours, then sat around doing literally nothing (except watching Netflix, kayaking and camping) for five straight months. Then, I got my formal offer and had about two weeks to finalize my Jeep purchase, find an apartment, pack up a UHaul and move my entire life across the country. In a GD pandemic.
Boy lemme tell you. Everything that could have possibly went wrong during this move went wrong.
Some exciting news today guys, ready?
YA GIRL IS NO LONGER UNEMPLOYED!
GUYS, I OWN A BRAND NEW JEEP WRANGLER! I OWN A BRAND NEW JEEP WRANGLER!
My mom came over at one point to dog-sit Duchess, my sister’s golden retriever, when she remarked “Kelly, Dutch has more toys than you had as a child.”
Well, without missing a beat, my sister was like “Duchess IS my child.”
Seriously, my sister spoils Dutch.
The world’s in chaos so here’s a lighthearted post featuring Duchess and some of her toys.
Have you heard teamwork., Loote and John K’s song “Wasted Summer?”
If not, you should listen. It’s pretty good. It’s a nostalgic bop about wasting the summers of your youth on doing drugs, sleeping in cars, falling in love and listening to music.
I’ve had it stuck in my head pretty much constantly this summer because, well, there’s a pandemic, I’m unemployed and I’m essentially wasting my summer. It’s just nowhere near as fun as teamwork., Loote and John K make it seem.
I will say though. Like I said in my camping trip recap, the one good thing about this pandemic is that it forced me to get outdoors and enjoy the nature of my home state.
It also forced me to develop closer relationships with a smaller number of people. Because I had the tiniest social circle ever, most of my summer memories were made with Kelly (my sister), Lexi (my cousin), Kayla (my sister’s best friend) and Zach (a friend from high school).
Now that it’s Labor Day Weekend and my summer is coming to an end, I kind of wanted to share a few odds-and-ends of the random (pandemic-safe) things I did during my wasted summer in Michigan.
I guess the cool thing about COVID (jk, there’s really nothing cool about COVID) is that it’s forcing me to spend more time exploring the outdoors here in my home state.
This past weekend, my high school friends Zach and Kevin and I booked what was literally the last public campsite in the entire state of Michigan and went up north to spend a few days camping in Traverse City.
Yep, we’re out here protesting too. BLACK LIVES MATTER.
Man. Things have been… weird.
I’ve been doing a whole lot of nothing lately. Waiting to reinstate? I guess? Coming up with contingency plans if I can’t? Maybe? I’ve been doing a lot of job searching, hoping to find something temporary like contact tracing or freelance reporting so I can bide my time until this all passes over and I can go back to Ukraine.
In the mean time, I just keep crying looking through old photos, talking to my host family, studying Ukrainian…
…pretending this will all be over soon.
I think this is the first Peace-Corps-but-post-Peace-Corps post I’ve written since our evacuation (parts one, two and three) happened. It’s been hard to really think too deeply about.
But, I digress. I wanted to take a second to share a few of my favorite places in Khmelnytskyi with you. Yunno. Just in case you ever find yourself in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine.
