so close to feeling close to the end
so, in reality, two months is a long time.
you can do a lot in sixty days. and meet a lot of new people, and learn a lot of new things, and read a lot of new books, play a lot of chess, but these last 60 days feel so unimportant. so short, and meaningless, so waiting.
with all of the other exchange students, we just talk about going home. not because it is so much a ‘want’ as it is a ‘reality’. so i guess that we are just embracing it.
i recently got back from an afs trip to the north of argentina, it was a beautiful week, with even more beautiful people stuck in a little bus for seven days. before i went on the trip, i was so happy in my life here. everything finally felt so normal—so good. but being with all of the other exchange students, seeing kids from the united states, constantly being surrounded by people exactly like you, made me realize what true happiness is. i don’t want to say that i haven’t felt truly happy at all this year, but being with those 53 other kids, just feels so good, so right, and normal, but really, truly, literally, normal.
so i came back to san juan—my home. or some sort of a home. i was happy to just sleep horizontally. and now a week has passed and most of the missing that i was doing has passed too, and now i am back to simply living again, and that should be enough to last me until the end.
the end—july 21st. i will be in a car, more than ‘a’ car, i will be in my car, with my family, driving back to my home, to sleep in my bed. and i will see my friends. and even though i miss them so dearly, i cannot imagine what my life is going to be like without my friends here.
i guess that i am talking more about my exchange student friends, because the truth is i simply just like them better than the real people who live here.
and i guess that i might be so jealous that everyone is from europe, and therefore so close, and they will see each other in germany in october, and i will try and stay with them, but physically it won’t happen, and i can plan as many summer trips to europe as i want, but i will never be apart of this world that they are all from.
and that sucks to be on the outs with the people who are on the outside with you.
i did my first round of packing today. made a pile of all of the things that i am not going to bring home with me, made a list of people who i need to buy presents for, made a list of books that i want to read while i am here.
i am craving a book in english. i am reading a book in english, but it just isn’t what i want. my rule was that i could only read in spanish, but after 9 months, i feel like one book in english isn’t going to change my knowledge that much.
but i want more than one book. i want to go to the bookstore and buy three books, and then i want to read them all in one weekend, and then i want my mom to ask me why i don’t just go to the library, and i will have to explain that i like using books quickly and keeping them. because it is your book. and you read it on the couch next to the cat in front of the fire place, and that is important. it is important that you keep this memory.
so i will buy more books here, and i will read them and i will try to bring them home, and maybe i wont be able to because in reality, they weigh quite a lot.
i am trying not to think of home as any kind of bliss, because that is not what it is. home is home. like it has always been. and maybe some things have changed and maybe some people have changed, but i imagine i will get home, and realize that missing it wasn’t quite worth it. that life is like this. and i chose this year to do this exchange, and i got this family and this school for a reason. and this is how it is supposed to be.
so i will live these last 58 days how they are supposed to be—normal. because even i am not homehome, i am still me. and in reality, i am my home, and i will always be who i am, no matter where i walk.
