Did I mention how bad I am at goodbyes?

Exploring Colorado

Fire Management

The First Few Days

Sweet Home Colorado

My new back yard, Rocky Mountain National Park

It’s 3:30 in the morning and the sound of my alarm brought me out of the daze of an attempted sleep. Three hours until my flight. Can’t I just hit the snooze button one too many times and miss it? I turned on the lights and looked around my room – photos of friends and family, post cards from around the globe, my favorite books, paintings of palm trees and the ocean… The mirror across the room reflected the sign above my bed – “La Vita è Bella,” “Life is Beautiful” in Italian.

Life is beautiful. Life is full of adventure, life is unpredictable, life is challenging, life is a roller coaster, life is terrifying, but beautiful nonetheless. Whatever life was about to bring, I was ready.

I climbed out of bed and gathered my belongings – 10 months of clothing packed up in one single suitcase. I sat down for my last breakfast at home with my mom and brother. I don’t remember much of what was said over breakfast, I don’t remember hugging my mama goodbye, I don’t remember the drive to the airport with my brother. All I remember from that morning is holding back tears and the woman charging me 90 dollars for my bag being 3 pounds overweight. I had lost the key to the lock on my suitcase on the way to the airport so I could not take anything out. Bummer. When I told her that she was charging me more than I would be making in a week, she told me that since I was doing community service, the money would eventually come back to me tenfold… Still waiting.

I got on the plane and was asleep before takeoff. When I opened my eyes, a beautiful panorama of the Rocky Mountains opened up before me. Even though only two months had passed since my last time in Denver, when I passed through on my cross-country road trip in July, seeing it from the sky was truly breathtaking.

When I got off the plane I was greeted by an AmeriCorps NCCC staff member who directed me to the check-in booth. I waited in line and made small talk with the people around me. “Where are you from? How old are you? What unit are you in?” Wait, unit? I suppose having been accepted only two weeks prior to the program’s start gave me a bit of a disadvantage, but nothing that wasn’t fixed within hours of my arrival.

I was assigned to the Sun Unit, and told to wait in the airport lobby alongside about fifty other people – people from all over the United States, ages 18 to 24, high school graduates and people with their bachelor’s degrees, a diverse group of people with the desire to serve, help others, and figure out the next step in life bringing them all together. Two hours of waiting, introductions and conversations later, we were on the bus heading to campus.

On the ride, I made my very first AmeriFriend  – Dylan, a fellow East Coaster who graduated from UConn, had an extensive travel resume and wanted to take the next year to figure out what he wanted in life. Yes, I was finally home.

Sunset over the Rocky Mountains - view from the dining hall of my new home, Colorado Heights University

Two Weeks Notice

Wounded Warriors Foundation fundraiser at the Intrepid - one of my last work nights with the Hart family

The two weeks following my decision were a blur – two weeks notice at a job I just started, errands, packing, goodbyes… Ah yes, did I mention how terrible I am at goodbyes? Because I am, and knowing that I am added a spritz (or, rather a waterfall) of anxiety into the mix, making things that much harder. By the time the one week countdown began, my angel of a mother had already put me on some Russian herbal medicine that was supposed to make me relax.

Relax? Impossible. I was leaving the comfort of my home, my friends and my family, and heading into the unknown. Interestingly enough, that sounded just like every trip I had ever taken, and there have been dozens. From traveling all over Europe to my yearly Russian summers, from spending a semester in Italy to a cross-country road trip this past summer, the only feelings I ever had prior to departure were excitement, happiness and the undying urge to explore. So why was it different this time around.

I was going alone, stripped of the comfort of either going with a friend or going to visit a friend. The only other time this had ever happened was when I moved to the United States when I was eleven. New country, new language, little idea of what to expect, and a complete lack of inner peace. Of course, I refer to it as inner peace from the high throne of a 24 year old – when I was eleven, it was known as not having any friends, not understanding what anyone around me was saying, not being able to tell the salesperson at the Christmas tree shop which one was my favorite, being away from my family and the country I once called home, etcetera.

I suppose that’s the fascinating thing about the way people develop, why people are the way they are, why they act the way they do – their background. I know, I know, a cliché fact known by all. However, it’s one of those well-known facts that often gets overlooked by people because, although we hate to admit it, we’re human, and we’re selfish. What we tend to forget is that every single person has a completely different outlook on life based on their experiences. Our experiences play a colossal role in shaping our personalities, beliefs, viewpoints, everything.

Yet somehow, time and time again, I find myself questioning why my grandmother reuses her tea bags until the "tea" that they brew is a yellowish water, and why all the gifts that I get her are saved, unwrapped, in the dresser "for a more difficult time of need." Well, that’s because she went through World War II and she remembers what it’s like to have absolutely nothing, to live in complete poverty, to starve, to ration. That stayed with her, and it will for as long as she lives. The examples of such behaviors are endless and I feel that if we all take a second to reflect on why people act the way they act, rather than lashing out on them for not acting the way you act, our society could finally experience some compassion and understanding.

So, going back to my experience of leaving for AmeriCorps, perhaps the reason why I was so scared was because the only other experience I had to compare it to was a very difficult time in my life. Luckily for me, history did not repeat itself, and beginning with the very first day, my time in the program has been nothing short of amazing.

That's me and some of the amazing ladies I am blessed to call my friends, on the eve before my departure. A wise word of advice - packing while saying your goodbyes is impossible, no matter how good at multitasking you think you may be.

The Big Decision (or No Decision at All)

The funny thing about life, or my life in particular, is that when it comes to the really big decisions, the ones that actually matter and will drastically alter the course of your future, I have yet to be faced with an easy one. Luckily, my choice this time around was between something awesome and something fantastic. Not so luckily, I am TERRIBLE at making decisions.

It was a chilly afternoon in late September. As I paced back and forth in front of the office of my current job anxiously awaiting the interviewer’s call from what I was hoping would be my next job, I could not help but wonder – is this it? Am I finally doing what so many have inquired (on an annoyingly regular basis) about? Am I finally growing up and settling down? Am I finally getting a real job?

In a daze, I nodded and uhum-ed as the woman on the other end described the job to me. An international translational service company which boasts quite the resume (they translate for the FBI, Honda and even McDonalds!), a pretty paycheck, a beautiful office on Park Avenue, and did I mention offices around the globe with a lot of opportunity for international travel? …what more could a girl who lives and breathes traveling and languages want, right?

Perhaps, but that girl would have to be sane and rational, which I tend not to be about 95% of the time. So, when I heard, “Congratulations Aliona, we would like to offer you the position, do you accept?” for some ungodly reason I asked for twenty four hours to think it over.

Twenty four hours. How much can really change in twenty four hours? For everyone else in the world they would go home, have dinner, head to bed, wake up the next morning and chew the decision over with some cereal for breakfast. They would then call back their recruiter and tell them they can’t wait to start. But that's just everyone else. For me, my entire life was changed in those few short hours.

As my phone vibrated the next morning to notify me of an e-mail, I could not help but get angry that I forgot to deactivate my Groupon e-mails (10 e-mails a day, really?) This one, however, was not from Groupon – it was from AmeriCorps NCCC, congratulating me on my acceptance to serve in two weeks.

My entire world was flipped upside down. My future consisting of a fancy NYC office and an apartment in Brooklyn withered away to nothing in a matter of hours. Very long, painful hours as I processed my current predicament, weighing each miniscule detail of my options. As much fun as growing up and settling down sounded, I could not get Mark Twain’s words out of my head:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

An office job in NYC is not going anywhere, but my youth is. Growing up, getting a “real” job and settling down can hold off for another year, but AmeriCorps cannot. Lastly, I have the rest of my life to make money, so why not volunteer and give back for a few months?

What came to me disguised as the most difficult decision of my life was really just a simple choice of following my heart and doing what I am passionate about. Needless to say that the doing the program alongside my best friend Melissa, who got accepted into the Sacramento program, was more than anything I could have asked for. 

And so they began, my ten months of service in Class XIX of AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, Southwest Region.