The human experience

This is the "About Me" from my Facebook page:

If I could major in The Human Experience with a minor in People I Don't Understand, I would.

I wrote that last summer, during the time I was volunteering at Dorothea Dix - Raleigh's state psychiatric hospital. They have classes there Monday-Friday, two in the morning and two in the afternoon, and I helped out with a music therapy class and an occupational therapy/arts-and-crafts one. Thomas, the music therapist, asked me partway through the summer what I enjoyed the most about volunteering at Dix. I told him that it was being able to see the residents, the people that are so unnoticed. He replied: "It's a whole new facet of the human experience, isn't it?"

Why yes, Thomas. Yes, it is. I latched on to that phrase so tightly. It just seems perfect to describe what I'm interested in. I think everything that I study (and if you haven't heard my laundry list of major and minors, I study a LOT of things) can be traced back to this concept of The Human Experience. Is that why I'm here in Jordan? For sure.

In my opinion, this study of the human experience is by necessity immersion-based. You can't really understand the mentally ill unless you sit in a room and play maracas with them, singing "Just My Imagination" and "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay." In the same way, I wouldn't be able to understand the Arab world without buying falafel sandwiches and talking with taxi drivers, without coughing the dust and seeing the land. (I've been within a stone's throw of Palestine!)

In fact, I still can't understand the Arab world. Not fully. Not ever. Every day I learn something new about Jordanian customs or Muslims' beliefs. I'm still learning how this world works. Perhaps the most beautiful part lies in my inability to fully comprehend it. And perhaps that's why "The Human Experience" isn't really a major - because you can't graduate.

I find it frustrating how difficult it is for me to express all the wonderful things I've seen and heard and done here. My writing is too slow to account for it all, and if I had written more, I would have done less. It's a trade-off I was willing to trade in on. And this is how it ends up: I've learned so much, and there's always going to be more to learn. I've written so much, and yet there's more that I could have written for every post.

As my time here ends (eight and a half hours until my plane takes off!) I can express nothing but gratitude, coupled with amazement. I'm grateful for everything that my host family has done for me - their generosity and love. And I'm amazed at how quickly Jordan has come to feel like home. A home, not THE home, because I can never give up Raleigh and Richmond as homes, either. This is my problem with leaving. I love too much. My host dad asked this evening if I was happy about going home or sad about leaving. I asked if I could be both. He said yes.

I love love love my Thomas and my parents and my family and my friends back in America. But I love my family and friends here, too. Leaving one home means deep sadness, but arriving at the other will drown me in joy. My best consolation in this is to think about the future, when I'm able to return to Jordan. Because I must return. This can't be the end. I'm absolutely terrible at saying goodbye to people/places/things, and I don't think I could handle treating this like a final goodbye. It can't be.

So to my Jordanian family, friends, life: I love you all. I'll miss you all. Your side of the human experience is fascinating, now more familiar than foreign, but still teaching me new things all the time. I won't forget you.

And to the American side of things: I'm coming! I'm about twenty-seven and a half hours away from Raleigh, as long as things go according to plan. (Insha'allah.) (God willing.) Can't wait.

With love to all,

Sarah

PS: I'm planning at least another post, so please don't go away yet. This isn't the end!