¡No sabes! Estoy emocionada sobre la vida, de nuevo.
For all my non-hispanohablante people out there, the subject line says: Guess what! I’m excited about life, again. Yup, it’s true. This time around, I know I’m not the only one feeling the love re: la vida peruana. As we close in on less than a month here, time is slipping through our fingers just as, like always, we are starting to get a good firm grasp on life here. Wouldn’t you know it, the closer it gets to closing time, the more I want to stay?
It’s a feeling most of my friends are grappling with it, and we are dealing in different ways. Some are getting nervous, others are spending as much time out in Lima as possible, me? I get sentimental, and think about it so much I can’t fight the urge to write about it here.
The thing that really amazes me is the bonds we have cultivated during our short time here. In college, friendships change because your family is no longer around so your friends become your support network, the closest thing to family you’ve got on campus. Here in Peru, it’s not exactly like at college where you have tons of friends and a college town to make your own.
Because of this, the friendships developed here are different. The support of friends isn’t encouraged, it’s necessary. Leaning on each other is just a part of daily life. We are undergoing, surviving, living a life-changing experience, together. It may not feel like it while minutes turn into hours into days, but we are changing here, and the only true witness to our new foreign selves are the friends who are also changing themselves.
We count on each other a lot more than casual friends in the USA might, but because of that, we’ve grown much closer in one semester than casual friends might. It’s because we count on each other, and also because there’s this urgency – we know, deep down, even though initially time does not feel like it will fly, it does, and we need people to witness the changes within us.
If no one else sees what the heck is happening, if we have no one to share this experience with, how will we ever remember it properly? How can we remember the ways in which we have changed, and try to keep ourselves grounded by the things that matter here, without others who are doing the same?
As I write this, I can’t stop smiling. The words are slipping through my mind, down my arms, through my fingers, into the keyboard and onto the screen way too easily. I know many writers have trouble finding inspiration, and to them I say: Put yourselves in a new, uncomfortable, foreign environment. As you struggle to find normalcy and make sense of new languages and ways of life, you will encounter countless things to write about.
I’ve said before how I was unhappy when I got here. Now I know I will be unhappy to leave. I’m a visual person; I can conjure up some pretty vivid mental images at the drop of a hat. When I think of leaving, I see a small child throwing a temper tantrum, complete with squirming, feet stomping, crying and pouting.
I think my actual exit from this country will go more smoothly than that, but inside – well I will not be a happy camper. This stupid country had to go and show me so much about myself and people and the world that I did a complete 180, and now this stupid country will always have a piece of my heart. And I know even when I come back, it will not be the same.
So many things that I love about this are so tied to the present moment, the here and now: I love the fact that I am not a tourist, that I live in Peru. I love my school and feeling part of a new, different university community that is growing and changing this country’s future. I love the friends I have here, and the fact that they are all I think about while I am here. These are all the reasons I slowly stopped missing home so much – because I feel at home here, now.
And when (not if) I come back to Peru, I will not live here, or go to school here, and my friends won’t be here. What I don’t like thinking about is that after classes end, and the traveling is over, and I’m packing my bags – the spell will be broken.
Something inside of me drops every time I say that phrase, and as the day gets closer, I can’t help but say it more and more. For now, I am going to make the most of my time here by spending as much of it as possible with these amazing friends enjoying this wonderful country.
People who have studied abroad can probably attest to this phenomenon – feeling wonderfully happy and mournfully sad, all at the same time, about so many things. It’s an incredible feeling, and I am lucky to feel it, and I’m not going to ignore it.
Just know that the reason you may not hear much from me is that I am desperately trying to squeeze every bit of time I can out of la vida peruana before the clock strikes, the spell is broken, and my time here is up.
I so now how you feel! Every time I read your blog I can’t help but remember how unhappy I was leaving London (my first study abroad). I cried the entire 7 hour flight home! Soak in as much as you can!