I just quit my job to join the Peace Corps

Although this journey started 10 months ago, or in a way 15 years ago, it wasn’t really final until this announcement went out:

Dear Colleagues,

It is with mixed emotions that I share with you that JP Renaud, after more than 5 years of dedicated service to the College, will be leaving UCLA to join the Peace Corps. His last day with the College will be Wednesday, July 11.

It didn’t seem real until then, even though I had spent nearly a year researching, debating the idea with friends and mentors, then applying, being rejected, re-applying, and interviewing. Even after I finally received an invitation to serve, there were still so many hoops to jump through — fingerprinting, background checks, dental and medical tests — that I kept myself from truly accepting what I was about to do. Not even the 19 needles used for vaccinations and blood work were sharp enough to jolt me into the reality of my future.

But that email not was only sharp, it was sobering.

After five and a half years working in communications at UCLA, I’ll move to Ukraine on July 29 for a year to help HIV NGOs build organizational capacity. And that’s about all I know.

I have dozens of questions, and no answers. I have no idea what happens next — where I’m living, who my coworkers are, how I’ll even communicate with people. I don’t even know how I’m feeling, or how I should be feeling. I’m asked on a daily basis if I’m excited. I don’t even have the answer to that question.

This is what I know: I’ll miss my friends; they became my family when I lost my own. I’ll miss the little things, like playing kickball, weekend brunches, the Star Trek nights. They kept me sane and happy. I’ll miss the people I work with; many of them were my mentors and my inspiration — this very blog exists thanks to the team I work with. No doubt, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

But I know this, too: This is the right thing to do, for myself and for my country. I’ve thought about this since my senior year in college, when I attended a Peace Corps orientation and watched a presentation about how the service can change lives. I wasn’t ready for all that at 22 years old. It was terrifying and overwhelming. Maybe I wasn’t brave enough.

But it stuck with me, and for the next decade and a half, I would be jealous, and in awe, of anyone I would meet who had gone through it. They were heroes. Somehow, some when, I had to do it, too.

I’ve never really regretted anything I’ve done — even if it was a mistake, I learned something from it. But not doing something, and wishing I had, terrifies me.

I don’t know that I’m any more ready, or any less terrified. But this is the time. We need to show the world that America is still the same country my parents fled to. I still believe that this country is the best hope for freedom and opportunity. And I can’t think of a better way of proving that than serving in the Peace Corps.

This is the first entry in what I hope will be a yearlong series documenting my time in Ukraine. Some posts will be sad. Some will be trivial. Some, no doubt, will be embarrassing. And I hope, a least a few, will make you proud.