I left the Harpswell dorm for the last time, crying in the back of a tuk-tuk (not a first for me). When you’re twenty-one, six months is basically one full dog year. It’s jarring how something can be a transformative experience for me, while Harpswell’s neighbors have no reason to notice that some redhead has stopped cruising on her bike down their alley.
I’m too close to the goodbyes for any real reflection. Instead, I keep imagining what I would say in a conversation with myself from six months ago. I want to tell her to pack more sunscreen, and that a sweatshirt was a waste of suitcase space. I would urge her to write more — to listen more, observe more, and to write down all of it.
Still, I managed to keep pretty consistent notes. Reading through my old writing is as close as I can get to a conversation with myself. (I mean, unless I used a tape recorder, and in either case, I’m going to cringe at my own voice).
Here are some quick highlights from each month of my notes, unedited and without much context. Fresh from the archives:
January
Getting to experience Phnom Penh with a 21-year-old Cambodian girl should be the designated way to experience Phnom Penh.
The LR [Leadership Resident] bike is a death sentence. I miss running.
Being an LR means always being “on.” Extroversion-induced exhaustion.
My first thought this morning was that Phnom Penh rain smells different. It’s the trash.
February
Current hit list: 1. That relentless rooster, and 2. All ants ever.
The cadence of Khmer is stuck in my head. All five senses are constantly on high in Phnom Penh.
“Needing space” makes it impossible for me to do my job.
Empathy is tricky. How can you show understanding when you have no right to understand the situation? Can I ever be empathetic when I’m not from here?
March
“Empowered” is a diluted word.
Had to be the messenger that [one third year’s] civic engagement project proposal was denied, because her hope to teach sex ed in her province would be too much of a “cultural taboo.” It wasn’t her, it’s the culture. She cried, saying “culture, culture, culture…you know, I really hate that word.”
April
After traveling alone, I feel like my gratitude for the dorm will always be tainted by how I resent the lack of privacy. I guess that proves how Harpswell works like a family. Gratitude and resentment. And like a home, once I arrived, any dread of returning was replaced with relief of familiarity.
May
Leadership Residents get humbled at the end of their stay by how inconsistent and ephemeral they can be. “The LR” is more important as a sum of parts, the role rather than the individual girl making a significant change. A different (usually white) face shifts on a rotation of three to six months, each one valued, but each one impermanent.
What’s the word for preemptive nostalgia?
And now we’re in June.
If I were advising the pre-Harpswell Meredith, I would assure her that she’ll feel a part of the Harpswell home — and to recognize that home isn’t all hugs and good moods. Home means that there’s going to be some dysfunction, a desperation for privacy, and days where you feel ungrateful and irrationally lonely. But in any healthy family, the hate is empty and the love is full. (Even if you need a therapist to unpack all the repressed family trauma down the line).
Thank you to Harpswell for welcoming me into the family. Thank you so, so much.
