Posts tagged change

Last January, I was looking for a reason to leave. Fresh off the plane from Buenos Aires, I was cultured, worldly, hungry, and resentful of anything labeled “American.” I discovered I was attractive. I dipped my feet into a modern-day fairytale for a weekend, and when the book shut in my face, I stumbled back to what I knew. I was arrogant in my solitude. I was proud of my uncertainty. I wasn’t afraid to fail, but I’d never admit it to anyone if I did. I felt like I knew everything. College wasn’t worth my time. What could it possibly teach me that I couldn’t learn better somewhere else? And what could any relationship provide me that I couldn’t provide for myself? I relished the thought of a one-room apartment in a different country, I looked at the future and imagined all these things I would prove to other people without once considering myself irrational. I was terrified of settling.

In short, I was an asshole. I let people get halfway close to me before slamming myself shut and strutting away. I probably hurt a lot of them. And for that, I’m sorry.

I don’t regret any decision I have ever made, though between January and June I made some very poor personal judgments. The high that came from six months in another country was understandable, but not the nonchalance with which I treated life back home. When you finally realize you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing with your life yet maintain the confidence to know you’ll succeed…well, that’s when you know what it feels like to be Philippe Petit. And it’s a pretty awesome feeling, if you’re feeling it for the right reasons. If you offered me a hand, I was gone in three seconds. I was on a mission to prove I could succeed and that I could do it alone, thank you very much. I wouldn’t even have to try. The only person to whom I should have proved that was myself. Instead, I elected the goal of getting to sneer and say, “I told you so.”

Well, I could easily sneer and say, “I told you so,” today, but for very different reasons. And I’d be saying it to myself, twelve months ago. Have you ever been jerked out of a good dream? It seems fantastic when you’re in it, but then you wake up to “real life” and it’s so much better? It took being knocked off my (exquisitely decorated - and with contemporary flair!) pedestal to quit being that asshole. And once I did? Well I can tell you, the roses smell fucking delicious.

So, it’s January 2012, and I am engaged. I am graduating in five months with a bachelor’s in Spanish. That abstract blob in the distance we call “the future” is still shiny, appealing, and uncertain. But it’s something I no longer want to face alone. I know that if I had to, I could. And that’s enough for me. The days of walking on a highwire without a safety net are gone, and I am happy they’re gone. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to (or should).

I am still ready to taste the independence and responsibility that comes with leaving The Hill, the bubble that filtered everything I experienced for the past four years. I’m stepping out of a shadow - the shadow of my parents, the university, my professors, my peers - along with so many other thousands of early twenty-somethings. We are starry-eyed, stressed, and hopeful, and by the time we look down to see where we’re going, we’re bound to find a few skinned knees. But this time we know how to pick ourselves up, slap on a Band-Aid and carry on.

leer y hablar siempre en espanol es algo que extrano mucho. si, tengo amigos con quienes puedo hablar en espanol, pero no estoy ALLA. estoy ACA. y eso me duele mas que cualquier otra cosa - este… no estar en un pais hispanohablante. tengo suenos raros, sobre subtes y caminando, quiza por el salvador hasta bulnes, hasta la linea D, hasta la facultad de medicina, por cordoba hasta ayacucho 555, donde trabaja la mujer que me dio el mejor consejo sobre la mascara. me escuchas? me duele tanto no estar en buenos aires. no se por que, me imaginaba que, con cada dia mas y mas lejos de la vida que vivia alla, lo extranaria menos y menos. pero cada dia aun mas, cada dia aun mas. es insoportable, no quiero sonar porque si sueno y me despierto todavia aca, en este pais donde no se que es que estoy haciendo…cada dia me despierto decepcionada.

i feel like i have absorbed so much of what it was to live in buenos aires that it’s hard to see the beauty i once saw in life here. and honestly, it’s not even the atmosphere, the setting - if it’s one thing i have gained an appreciation for, it’s the natural beauty of Ohio that i once found so hard to see. but the people, la gente, la onda - alla es diferente, totalmente distinto. and while i once thought i could never express myself in spanish, each day i find more and more beautiful things about the language i missed in previous days. it’s a growing process, y ahora es como una adiccion. i fiend to learn more and speak more and immerse more, perhaps why i’m so unhappy here. it’s stupid, trite, and cliche, pero siento que me encontre en argentina. no se si hubiera sido diferente en otro pais, pero elegi argentina and now it’s all i can think about. es como estar enamorada. like falling in love and then having to leave due to forces fuera de tu control. and i’m left trying to pick up the pieces, to recordar lo que vivi, que SI era real, que SI me paso y que there is no excuse not to carry that as deep into my heart as it will go.

una profesora mia en FLACSO nos dijo una cosa el ultimo dia de clase. nos dijo que “siempre los voy a recordar”. pero que significa recordar? viene del latin - las palabras “accordare” (proximidad), y “cordis” (corazon). Es como decir “unir los corazones”, o sea, cada vez que te recuerdo, te estoy pasando por el corazon.

words are beautiful little things. and two languages are by far mejor que one. speaking spanish has become to me like journaling - i go more than a day and a half and i need a fix. que bueno. que bueno, que bueno, que bueno.