Natalie Leaves

 I just got home from saying goodbye to my friend. Natalie and I trained in Olongapo together but in separate clusters, we saw each other from time to time but rarely collaborated. When I found out where my site was going to be I checked to see who would be the closest to me from my batch, and that was Natalie. My first response was, “really? Natalie?”, I was unenthusiastic. I did know that I had little trouble or complaints regarding Natalie from training, I complained about others in excess, so I figured she couldn't be bad. Correct.

Sometimes your “feelings” are on the mark. While Natalie and I saw no reason to be friends before site, we made an effort to change that when we got to site. Our friendship immediately took off, we met on weekends, talked shop, and were even planning a vacation to Sagada, one of the coldest places in the Philippines, come Christmas.

I had prepped myself into declaring Natalie as my main emotional support, she was a friend, from my batch, and nearby so we could hand and process our Peace Corps experience together. Sadly, today that idea will be a dream from here on. Natalie opted to Early Terminate (ET) her service.

Why did she decide to ET so suddenly? I won't talk details, as she has confided in me and I'm still very much a friend of hers, but it was a sudden decision that she was more forced into making.

When I first heard the news of her possibly Eting I was unconcerned. As the days progressed and the final choice came to be ET, I still found myself unaffected. I reminded myself she would be fine and focused on the positive (oh me!). I'd been texting Natalie and she told me she'd be back in her city today and would leave tomorrow morning, today was my last chance to say goodbye. I said “see you later, “ and left directly from work to see my friend for the last time.

After an hour's ride in a bumpy jeepney, and a quick trike ride, I was finally with Natalie. We hugged, talked briefly and set out to find some food under a time limit. As I'm an hour's ride away, there aren't many jeeps back after a certain time, and that time was an hour after I arrived in her city, we had so little time.

She was upset over her decision but was at grips with it. She said she was so excited to see her dog again and have a real Thanksgiving. We went in search of a restaurant and gave up when no interesting candidates were found. I treated her to a supermarket banquet of cookies, peanut butter, and a drink.

We sat outside the mall, talking, drinking, laughing, encouraging, apologizing, eating, and even snapping a photo for memories. We noticed a group gathering where the jeeps park and figured that was my group (I had only one shot at getting a ride home at that hour). We made our way over that way and when a jeep barker announced the arrival of the last jeep to Cabanatuan City, we had to wrap our goodbyes up.

We hugged a good long time and wished each other luck. I ran off to the jeep and she walked towards a trike. That's how a new friendship was cut short.

I wrote a long time ago about the emotional support network here. It's mainly built of PCVs for me as I'm finding. If you imagine the game Jenga, where you remove a block (a friend?) from the middle of the structure and place the block on top of the tower, that about sums up this experience. A block was removed from my base and over the weakness is now more pressure, creating instability.

Don't worry though, I'm not teetering on the edge yet, I'm alright. The departure of Natalie came with hurt and it'll weigh on my mind for awhile. I still have my local PCV friends Emily and Caitlyn, they're wonderful people. I'm trying to turn this serious downer into encouragement, something to that makes me achieve more in my site.

We'll see.