For the sake of this post please pretend it is October 27th, 2011:
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| Sunrise on the flight from Miami to Sao Paulo, Brasil. |
Three months on this day I sat a plane taking me far away from the world I’d known for the past 18 years. Taking me away from the life I had created. Taking me away from the family that watched me grow and loved me no matter what. Taking me away from the friends that got me through everything and made even college applications bearable. Taking me away from my boyfriend who knew everything and still liked me despite all my eccentricities and faults. Taking me away from my small town that had watched my chubby five year old self play Cootie Tag on the Marin School Yard and 13 years later watched me graduate high school. Taking me away from a country that recognizes me as one of its kin, a small part of something much greater but nonetheless one of them. It was taking me away from the security of everything I have ever known, the identity I didn’t realize I had built and relied on. It took me to a place where everything was unknown, I was unknown, and anything goes.
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| Buenos Dias! Brasil and Paraguay AFSers after the red eye flight to Sao Paulo. |
Sometimes I hate that plane so much, I want to take it all back and wake up in my pale green bedroom, go down stairs and just watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians . Sometimes I know that although it’s hard, that plane is the best decision I have ever made. And sometimes I can’t believe there ever was a plane. AFS, American Field Service is the intercultural organization I came with, has a theory that the first three months are the hardest and I couldn’t wait to get over that hump. Well I am standing on that hump and I can’t tell if the hardest part is over but there has been a definite shift in my mentality. It finally hit me: I am going to be in Paraguay for quite some time, so it’s time I start living here. Here in this moment when life happening. Feel emotions instead of analyzing and trying to change them. For the past four years my mind was supposed to be on the future, I acted in the present to benefit the future. I am all for planning, organization and delayed gratification, but somewhere in between the AP classes and college essays I forgot how to live in the present. I only knew how to act in the moment, but my mind was always on the past or the future. In the first few weeks it became apparent that the future was bleak, for various reasons I will explain later, and the past was just depressing, so after about two months of myriad amounts of sulking, tears, Gossip Girl, loneliness, and sadness I began to feel a little better. The culture shock was over. And now at three months, I am ready accept that I will spend eight more months here and I intend every second of those eight months in the present. So this is me officially saying hasta luego to the family, friends, aquaintences, enemies, frenemies, teachers, and everyone else I love and saying hello to life in Paraguay. Wish me luck!
