My first six months in Nicaragua have probably been the happiest consecutive six months of my life. Yes. I don't think that's an exaggeration. Once, a friend described my moods (if plotted on a graph that ranged from suicidal (on the negative half of the graph) to ecstatic on the positive side with zero being neutral, measured over time) that as opposed to most people's gently oscillating, fairly stable sightly-happier-than-neutral emotional states, mine would violently rocket from one extreme of the graph to the other like a seismograph during an earthquake. This was true for long periods of my life, especially in high school and college. And if it wasn't going back and forth, it was usually stuck pretty far into negative territory, for weeks or months at a time.
I've leveled off down here. There are still bad days and good days, of course, but for the most part I've managed to keep myself well up on the positive side of the emotional graph, somewhere between content and thoroughly enjoying myself. I think there are lots of things that factor into this, and would like to write them out, if for no one else's benefit but my own.
1) Work - For the past two years, I worked ridiculous hours under a ridiculous amount of stress, first student-teaching and then real-teaching, both of which involved constantly getting to school early and leaving hours after the kids got out, filling out mountains of paperwork, grading mountains of essays and worksheets, entering those grades, planning tests and quizzes and lessons and assignments mostly on my computer, mostly alone, and mostly late at night. There were few points I could genuinely enjoy what I was doing, because I was so terrified that I wasn't doing it very well/wouldn't get it done on time, that I was letting people down, and that I was secretly being judged as barely competent by the people receiving my lessons and observing me give them.
The weight that I was under has melted away down here. I work twice as much as I'm supposed to according to PC standards, teaching 30 hours a week with my five counterpart teachers, but after working 50-60 hour weeks for two years, this feels quite light. All homework and assessments are checked in class. I'm always teaching with another teacher, and so we share the load during classes, as well as for planning and making materials. I get to focus on those last two aspects, in the absence of the paperwork/busywork parts that don't exist down here. As a result, I'm a lot more confident about the time I spend in the classroom. I get instant positive feedback from my profes and the kids, none of whom doubt my ability to speak and teach English, and who moreover are mostly excited to be learning from me, and listen to me when I speak. I feel like I'm genuinely helping, providing a better service to the kids and my profes than they would have in my absence.
2) Transportation - I ride my bike everywhere, or else take the bus or maybe a taxi if I have a longer way to go. The bike riding has toned my lower body into a shape it hasn't been in since high school, and moreover is a lot of fun; while the hill I struggle up on the way to school every morning (and most afternoons) is hard on the way there, it is the closest thing I get to riding a rollercoaster here on the way down. I don't have to drive anywhere, or deal with traffic, or have the existential dread in the back of my head about getting into another accident and having to deal with insurance and my parents' scorn and bureaucracy.
3) Gardening - since coming to college, I had kind of wanted to have a garden every summer, but was always too busy, or couldn't find the land, or missed the planting season, or something. Now I'm doing it, and have lots of spinach growing (and currently being devoured by ants, but I've got an organic pesticide brewing to spray all over them this weekend). The work it took to de-weed and de-garbage the land my family lets me use toned my upper body in a way that it's never actually been before. It was satisfying, and it still feels good to see the results of my work when I water my plants and take out the organic trash from my family's kitchen (which makes me feel good about not wasting it) every day.
4) Getting old - there was a really good nytimes article I read about the upside of derpression, the thrust of which was that it focuses the mind on the problems that are ailing it, which while not being any fun, is useful in bringing about solutions and changes in behavior that eventually make people happier. I hesitate to say this is what happened to me, but I thought while reading it that a lot of the reasoning applied to me. Also, like The Smashing Pumpkins said, "The more you change the less you feel..." I don't get to the extreme parts of that emotional graph very often anymore, low or high. Whatever chemical made that possible when I was a teenager seems to have exited my brain (which I've heard actually happens), and has left me a bit more level of a person.
5) All My Friends - My friends in college and in Baltimore kept me sane through the last two years of my life. Down here, I have my fellow TEFL group people, especially my Dolores people (as well as somewhat inexplicably the Rosie people, now that training is done) who I feel really close to. I still keep in touch with some people from home and Baltimore. I have a super-supportive family down here (and in Michigan, too).
6) I Don't See What Anyone Can See, In Anyone Else... But You - So while I've been blessed with a wonderful support network of family in friends during both time periods under examination here, the thing that has changed has been my relationship status. The relationship I've had with Kim has been the happiest and longest running of my life. It's been harder since coming down here, and we've had our share of bad days; but overall, talking to her all the time, writing to her, and getting to see her occasionally has been wonderful. No matter how close a friend is, it's never the same as someone showing you that you mean more to them than anyone else. Even being far away from each other, knowing there's someone out there who falls asleep thinking about me has taken a lot of strain out of my interior life.
*fin*
So, in the end, I feel like all these things have played off each other and made my experience down here a happier time for me than the times I spent in the states. This isn't to say that I don't want to come back - I'm soooo looking forward to coming back for spring break and getting to see my friends and have a choice of what to eat at restaurants and to actually have good beer to drink and movie theatres to go to if I so choose and lots of other little things. It's also not to say that I couldn't be as happy as I am here when I come back for good in a year and a half. As long as I can find work that isn't overwhelming but is fulfilling; exercise and hobbies that balance me; someone who loves me; and friends that I look forward to seeing and hearing from constantly. I feel like that's a good recipe for long-term happiness just about anywhere.
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