They say that scent is the most nostalgic sense. Smelling something specific from your past can take you right back to that moment in time. I think about this when I get a whiff of my wet hair in the morning. I started buying the same shampoo that I used to use in Panamá. When I close my eyes and inhale its scent, I am bathing in my outdoor shower in the heat of summer again. I get hit with a wave of memories when my Honduran roommate cooks plátanos in our shared kitchen. It reminds me of my weak attempts at frying patacones on my little gas stove in my little concrete kitchen. Sometimes, it feels like that year was all a dream. Other times, when the sounds of the city wake me in the middle of the night, I fall into a panic because I still don’t recognize my new bed.

Tonight I am stuck staring at a screen for the billionth time since the pandemic began, trying to put into words how different my life is right now than it was one year ago. March 19, 2021 will mark one year since I was evacuated from Panamá and Peace Corps to the United States. Due to rising concerns of the coronavirus spreading in country, Peace Corps staff told us we had no time to say goodbye. Grab what you can and get out of site, they said. So, I never got to say goodbye to my community, mi gente. But I can’t blame Peace Corps staff for this. I knew the virus wasn’t so bad that it would have spread to the mountains of Coclé already. I knew I had time to visit people one last time. Still, directly after I dropped off my keys to my neighbor, I. Just. Left. But I didn’t speed away from my community because I was so eager to go back to the US. It was the opposite: I couldn’t face the sad, scary truth that I was leaving Panamá. I couldn’t make myself run around yelling permiso! from house to house to tell all my favorite people that I had to go but that I loved them. I convinced myself that my departure was only a break. I’d be home soon. No need to be dramatic.

A year has passed, and I sorely regret not saying goodbye to my Panamanian friends and neighbors, to every single person who looked after me as if I truly belonged in their community. Because now I know I am not going back. It’s not that I can’t go back. Peace Corps HQ keeps calling and emailing me to perform the necessary steps toward reintegration into service, so the option is there. And it’s definitely not because I don’t want to go back. I miss Panamá more than I’ve ever missed anything in my life. I stay in touch with mi gente on WhatsApp but its not the same as paseando every day. Maybe it’s selfish, but I equate my evacuation with a death or a breakup. I’m still trying to process the pain of never getting that second year of Peace Corps. Peace Corps shaped my identity. Without it, I have been desperately grasping for something as meaningful. It feels like something I can never truly get back, that part of my life. But that is also exactly why I won’t return to service.

The year 2020 changed me as it changed everyone. Peace Corps made me feel like I was special. Evacuation made me realize that I am not. I still believe I have a lot to give, but I can’t imagine that being a Peace Corps Volunteer even in a post-COVID world is exactly what my community or Panamá needs. It’s also not what I need right now, even if I really want it. I need something more sustainable. I need to lean into my new job, volunteering gigs, reaching out to friends for video calls, piles and piles of creative projects, and reading all the books that I left on my shelf back in 2019. I need to take another big leap of faith at a new dream. And for the past several months, I have been steadily working toward a new dream. It’s exciting and something that can offer me both stability and advancement. Those are things that, right now, Peace Corps can’t offer me. Maybe I will apply again some day, but right now the pain is still too raw. My community doesn’t need me, and they never did. It’s not really a hard pill to swallow. It’s just hard to find the strength and the maturity to move on.

Someday, I will return to Panamá to visit my community. I wonder how my presence will be perceived then. Will they remember me as that weird gringa who chomped on carrots as she walked down the hill? Will I be welcomed back as the ticher who incorporated new activities into the English and counseling curriculums? Who made it a point to get to know every single person at the school whether or not they were counterparts in the classroom? Will they remember me simply as the friendly extranjera who went around house to house, brazos llenos de pastel de guineo? I do not know if they will even really remember me when I have the chance to return. But, whenever I do visit, I promise that I will fill my nose and lungs with the sweet mountain air like it’s the last time. I will give strong hugs and speak sin pena.

This time, I will say goodbye.