Being healthy for the first time in a long time

The strangest part about it all is that I am healthier over here than I have been at home in a long time. I am getting eight hours of sleep, running every morning, eating three healthy meals a day and drinking lots of water. Not to mention how emotionally and spiritually healthy I feel right now. I have been stereotyped before people have gotten to know me, and eventually I became the person everyone assumed that I was. I lost my own personality in, education classes, Residential Life, teaching Sunday school, and being a day care teacher. I love participating in those activities, but with them come the responsibility of living a life in a fish bowl. I’ve always been a role model and sometimes the pressure of having to do the right thing gets to be too hard. I feel like everyone is looking at me watching everything that I do waiting for me to make a mistake. It feels so good not to worry about any of that. Over here in Tanzania I have gotten a fresh start where I get to rediscover who Wendy Nelson truly is. I am no longer the little girl who worried about making everyone else happy and follow the guidelines other people have placed in my life. I still have the same morals and I am still the same person, I just no longer am going to concern myself with worrying about the person that I thought that I had to be. I am now the person I want to be, strong, independent, compassionate, and hard working. As my friend from home said, “When you come home you will be healthy and have you own personality.” I am finally becoming the individual I want to be rather than the person my peers have made me become.