Just before noon this coming Saturday, I will be airborne and en route to the Good Ol’ USA. Probably I should be really excited about this, but in fact, I am terrified.

It’s not just that I only have JA$1,500 to get me from Claremont on Friday to Brownstown (where I’m spending the night in order to be that much closer to Montego Bay in the morning) and then from there to the airport.

It also isn’t that I’m worried people will look me up and down and say “Wow, T! You look…healthy….”

It’s not that I don’t want to re-connect with my friends and family who I haven’t seen in at least 16 months (in the case of my family, it’s been much, much longer).

It’s so many things that I’m nervous about, and the enforced hermitage imposed by the rain this week has given me way, way too much time to think about all of this.

First off, are the “Gimmies”. I love shopping, and I don’t really get a chance to do it here in Jamaica. Honestly, I don’t really miss it, mostly because what’s for sale here just isn’t my style. I’ve made do with the same clothes, and when needed, my mom has sent some much needed basics down as what I’ve brought wears out. I’m most definatly not “in style”, and it doesn’t bother me that much. But when I go back, there will be all these clothes that I WANT! And shoes that I WANT! And make-up that I WANT! But don’t really need for another year, and can’t afford even if I did. But I will WANT THEM SO BAD, and seeing my friends who have jobs, and make money, and have money to spend (unlike me who is flat broke all the damn time)- that will be really really hard. Also, I’m painfully aware that this is something really shallow to be so worried about. There you have it: I like to be a pretty girl. I’m shallow, and it makes me feel like the Worst Peace Corps Volunteer Ever that all I want is to be able to buy a cute shirt and not have it blow my monthly budget.

Also, feeling like the Worst Peace Corps Volunteer Ever- like, seriously, I’m fighting the feeling that I don’t do anything ever as it is, and going back home to have people be like “So, like, OMG, what do you do?!!” is going to be obnoxious. I’m having enough issues with my job/assignment as it is without non-Peace Corps people being all up in my business about it. (So if you ask me that, friends, and I’m kind of short with you, that’s why. Just don’t ask me.)

And I’m in Jamaica, which is going to be annoying enough answering questions about as it is- Americans really think they know Jamaica, either because of the resorts (thats NOT Jamaica, sorry about it) or because of the crime, or because of (shudder) St Marley. “How’s Jamaica?” I mean, I cannot possibly convey to anyone “how is Jamaica.” It’s not one thing: It’s so amazing! It’s so hard! I hate it 4% of the time and lovelovelove it the other 96! It’s fucking Peace Corps, people, and if you don’t know, you just don’t know and I can’t really tell you. And if you ask me why I’m not more tan, I will be forced to inflict some bodily harm.

There is the issue of “home”. For many of the PCV’s, home is also where their families are. My parent’s no longer live where I consider “home” (Vermont). I will only be at home in Burlington for a week- one very stressful week trying to cram in seeing everyone and doing everything I want to, all while helping one of my very bestest friends prepare for her wedding. Which will be awesome, but not relaxing, and then almost as soon as I’ve arrived, I’m on a plane headed out to my family in Kansas. I love my parents, just crazy about them, but seeing them is not necessarily the same as being “home”. A strange dichotomy of place.

Further more, I haven’t left this little island in over a year! Jamaica is and isn’t very different from the US, and I’m concerned about feeling just sort of…off. Remember when you were little, and after rollerblading or ice skating for a couple of hours walking is completely different? Your legs don’t move quite the way they should, and the ground is all of a sudden way closer then it was and your brain takes a while to readjust? Will the ground just be in a totally different place? Will my depth perception remain a little skewed? Should I have the flight attendant push me to the baggage claim in one of those wheelchairs with the tall orange flags?

I know that the worries will mostly evaporate the minute I see Siobhan standing at the end of the terminal with a huge iced coffes and a mix CD just loaded with Salt n’ Pepper, Mariah Carey, and En Vogue- but it’s going to be three very very very long nights until then.