Quarter life rumination

Even as a self-proclaimed “child by choice,” 25 sounds old sometimes.
I know. I know it’s not. It’s relative.
But there is a small level of expectation that didn’t exist before.
I need to know I’m progressing even if age
doesn’t correlate to experience, knowledge, wisdom, or maturity.
That does NOT mean I want to start taking myself super seriously
or pretend I’m all grown-up even if 18 suddenly seems young. 
I don’t want to stop living fervently or even foolishly.
I want to get manic about spring, dance with reckless abandon, 
stay up all night talking to strangers without purpose,
impulsively drive to the middle of nowhere, dream of going around the world and
passionately compile stacks of books I’ll never get around to reading.
But I’m wary because I don’t have much time to waste.
Six years after the fact, I now understand why
my former boss said “you need more urgency.”
Never mind that she was talking about coffee. 30 will be here tomorrow.  
Until now, I felt like there would be 
“Time for you and time for me/
and time yet for a hundred indecisions/
and for a hundred visions and revisions.”  (T.S. Eliot) 

But now time has started accelerating. I barrel forward. Woosh. 

As a child, my mid-twenties seemed very distant. With curiosity and naivety, I used to dream of being 25. I was always very confident in my visions. At 25 my older sister was married, working and a mother of three. Imagining a similar fate was not a stretch. I pictured myself in a black & white portrait. I imagined children around, organized belongings, day-to-day stability and a certain ease in my mannerisms. Sprinkled wisdom twinkled throughout. WOW I couldn’t have been more inaccurate and our lives couldn’t contrast more.

Now aside from aging, I’m certain that I haven’t a clue of what lies ahead, I am very confident of the uncertainty. Life is red, yellow, orange, blue, indigo, green and violet paint swirled together. It’s infinitely more complicated, messy and chaotic than I could have ever conjured up in my little black & white daydreams. I yearn for some routine to manage easier.

These days, I wake up each morning. I open my eyes and wonder how I survived my teens and arrived at this prime age. I wonder how I got to be where I am. Where did chance lead? And where exactly did the ripples from the butterfly effect begin?

I grazed a colossal ice-berg last year.

Traveling left me dreaming of possibilities, drooling over opportunities I didn’t know existed. I saw the potential for life and conversely understood the potential for its waste. There are so many places I want to go, people I want to meet on the road, and an infinite amount I have yet to learn. There is so much I don’t want to miss, and so the sound of the second hand ticking seems amplified! My fear of getting stuck in a rut is more terrifying than ever.

Transitions…. Everyone goes through them but that doesn’t make them easier. My resolve hasn’t hardened with age; I only grow more sensitive. Bracing myself, I get ready to leap yet again. Prepared to swim, wade, dance and float. I Inhale deeply to the mantra trust, and then I gingerly dive.

With awareness, gentleness, and kindness I have to trust everything will work.

stuck on this loveliness.

Delicate dream filled twilight world: Transitioning back to life in the US

Unconsciously I lean over to throw my toilet paper in the trash and just as I’m about to drop it, I remember that I’m in the US. I mutter “gracias” under my breath as the waiter delivers my iced drink. Two days ago I got back to the US. Immediately my South American adventure seemed like a dream that happened world’s away in a place where swimming pool noodles and Christmas trees are sold together. Completely surreal.

Aside from the occasional reminders like accidentally ordering in Spanish, everything appears eerily unchanged. I quickly began to ask myself “have I really changed?” A comforting familiarity that was virtually nonexistent while abroad looms in the air. My apartment is littered with boxes I happily left behind. They are filled with old possessions like mixed CDs, school projects, unfinished books, dvd box sets, a bike helmet, dusty clothes, and photo albums. Inessential, they are reminders of old identities and memories that I can’t seem to part with. “Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you” (Fight Club). Falling back into my old life is effortless just like floating down stream.

When someone asks, “How is it to be back?” or “How were your travels?” I’m not sure if they want a simple one-word answer like “nice” or if they are interested in hearing the truth. I get the feeling that they are looking for the short answer and the question is posed out of politeness. Regardless, I decide to answer the perfunctory question(s) truthfully, because I really want to know the answer myself. I hesitant though, because I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging or preachy.

I search for concise meaningful answer(s) but am unable to paraphrase 13 months for any question. My answers are based on erratically triggered recollections. Momentary flashbacks spontaneously surge from things like peeling an avocado, to hearing an Adele song, to smelling coffee, to feeling highly pressurized water rinse my skin. I give anecdotal answers. They are sporadic at best. In my native language ironically I painstakingly struggle to communicate while the listener struggles to relate. I feel like a foreigner lost in translation.

I have a strong desire to be reticent, since it seems so much easier. I could spare boring people and be certain that I don’t get misunderstood. Bewildered, I know something has changed…

"Como fue? no se decirte como fue no se explicarme que pasó pero de ti me enamoré Fue una luz que eliminó todo mi ser"

Learning to Let Go

In less than a week, I will leave the noisy, humid, exhilarating city of Buenos Aires and return to Texas. I will have been gone for exactly 13 months. As I was preparing to leave for Chile, I wrote this “. As the departure date February 22nd 2011 transforms from a distant daydream into an imminent reality, now that my plans and a dream of mine come to fruition, I feel a smorgasbord of contrastive emotions to include the following but not exclude unlisted emotions: excitement, anxiety, mania, fear, gratefulness, elation, disbelief, unworthiness, joy, phantasmagorical and nervousness. The internal sloshing has concocted some bewildering cocktails.” (I just had to look up phantasmagorical haha, neat word though doesn't really make sense. Actually, I would rephrase the sentence entirely but that's neither here nor there.)

Now 13 months later, I’m going through a similar process again. Only this time, the place I am returning to is much more familiar. I know exactly what my house will smell like and that the air-conditioning will be humming day and night at 70 degrees. I know the feeling of cold tile that I will be walking on. In spite of all this, my life in the US has become like a distant dream. When I think about how life changing has been, I can only hope that it will not all fade to black.

Buenos Aires, A Whole New World

I woke up craving milanesa and to the sound of traffic whizzing by. I actually pinched myself and David to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. On February 22^nd exactly one year after leaving the US, I picked up my two 50 pound suitcases, boarded an airplane, and said goodbye to Chile. After a short flight, I arrived in Buenos Aires where I will be hanging my hat for the next month. I am living in an apartment with a middle-aged Argentinian woman that I met from this website http://www.coret.com.ar/ She named all of her rooms after tango songs, and mine is aptly named “cuartito azul” .

When I arrived to the apartment (on zero sleep) after moving my life from Santiago to Buenos Aires, I started to rant about how excited I was to see clouds and feel wind, and the lady looked at me like I fell off my rocker. I didn’t know it was possible to miss wind. However, after living in a smog desert for a year, I can tell you it certainly is. I’ve only been here a few days, but I am already enamored with Buenos Aires, because this city is overflowing with personality. Perhaps it’s premature, but I already have started making a list of things that BA has that Santiago didn’t have: diversity of skin color/food, free education, cheap books nearly every few blocks, art and value placed on it, music, style that isn’t from the 80s, Spanish that is laced with an Italian accent and people who don’t whisper or cut off syllables as often.

That isn't to say that Santiago has nothing to offer or that BA is perfect. Buenos Aires' streets are much more dirty, the taxi drivers drive as if they were in bumper cars, there are ridiculous rates of inflation and everything is all around more chaotic.

We are living in San Telmo, one of the most touristy areas in BA. It’s a hipster’s paradise. Today we walked through a Sunday antiques market that was filled with hundreds of people from all over the world. I saw a woman dressed up as Frida Kahlo singing, a man dressed as Charlie Chaplin, people dancing tango, and a man playing classical guitar. They were selling an assortment of things that ranged from pocket watches, to crystal glasses, to siphons, to old advertisements, to books about communism, to Panama hats. The city is enormous and it seems to have everything. The amount of excitement and life makes me dizzy. It seems to have most of the things from home I was missing without all of the anxiety and stress that the US has. I couldn’t feel more lucky to be here..

"Nothing lasts but nothing is lost"

“ ‘I know I ain’t got no talking room, but a boy like you shouldn’t be on the bum [slang for on the road with the circus]. I’ve been on the bum and it ain’t no life.’ […] ‘If you got a life to go back to I reckon that’s what you should do.’ [says Camel to Jacob] It’s a moment before I can answer. When I do, my voice cracks ‘I don’t.’ [replies Jacob the protagonist]”-Water for Elephants

I don’t think anyone moves away for a year if they have a lot tying them down. Generally, people move because they need an escape or are searching for something. Recently, I watched a movie about North American nomads that travel west. There is something very romantic and appealing about the notion of constant travel and adventure. I like the idea of floating from place to place. Journey without destination is beautiful to me. Though the more I mull over the idea, the more I realize that fear is driving me.

David pointed out that everyone in the documentary had something in common: they were all running from something. I consider myself a little bit of a travel addict. Up until recently, I always assumed it was just something innate in my bones; a congenital disease of sorts. And perhaps that is partially true. However, I am coming to realize that I fear living in a stifling box where I live for work, though I also fear unemployment. I am deathly afraid of complacency, stagnant years and predictable days. I am afraid of being tied down, wasting potential, and of no longer having dreams laden with youth. I run from normalcy and tremble at the thought of ever being considered normal.

At the same time, a part of me craves relationships that are more than transient. There are moments when I would do anything to be cradled by a comfort that can only come from familiarity that has grown over the years. As my South American adventure nears its end, I am left wondering how can I live a life of both adventure where I push my limits regularly and a life of stability and long-lasting meaning? There has to be an answer…right..right? Are my fears inevitable? Will it be just another self -fulfilled prophecy?

Iguazu Falls, Argentina (Part 1)

At the beginning of December I finished my teaching contract at DUOC. My mom and 82 year old grandma arrived in the middle of giving and grading final exams. Not long after, I began 6 weeks of travel, 2 with my mom and grandma, and my life has been a whirlwind of travels, goodbyes, and trying to figure what to do next ever since. I have tried to keep my various travels separate in my mind like marbles, but I have found that the more time passes, the more they mix together in my mind like flour and water. Sticky. This is an attempt to separate the ingredients in order to preserve them and gain perspective.

On December 10^th 2011 we flew to Iguazu which is on the border of Argentina and Brazil. It was a warm, humid jungle reminiscent of the Peruvian Amazon. On December 11^th, 2011 we woke up early to go on a full-day tour of what was recently named one of the new 7 wonders of the world. We took a train to the top of the waterfalls, and the first thing we came to was “the devil’s throat” (la garganta del Diablo). It’s an enormous, U-shaped waterfall that can only be visited from the Argentinean side.
On the walk we saw a rainbow and coatis; they’re like a south American raccoon. Thirsty for our sweat, butterflies followed us around making the experience even more surreal.


After visiting the devil’s throat, we hiked below over 200 waterfalls. Unreal.

After our hike, we went on a boat below the waterfalls. It was terrifying but also exhilarating and of course unforgettable. We got soaking wet. I was left with puddles in my shoes. Jeans were not a good choice.
During our waterfall adventure my 82 year old grandma hurt her foot. A week later in Santiago, they diagnosed it as a spider bite that could have led to paralysis and immediately gave her an anti-venom shot. When she returned to the USA, we found out that she had in fact fractured her foot and limped all over Buenos Aires on it. (Next entry Buenos Aires)

I Hope You Find What You're Looking For

Sometimes I think that my last entry was just a bunch of hogwash. I feel strong some moments and equally weak during others. Reading charles buwkoski has made writing about finding inner-strength seem like silly drivel. Actually, every time I write in this blog, I feel ridiculous because I'm well aware that my thoughts aren't that interesting (unless you're my parents), but I continue to do so in hopes that it serves some personal purpose.

Ever since I got to Chile, I have been trying to figure out what motivated people to come here. Three girls that are extending their stays have found Chilean boyfriends. Two girls left the program early, and had boys waiting for them back home. It could be a coincidence, but I am inclined to think not. Romance and love are powerful motivators, even if no one likes to admit it. Another person I met realized that he was ready to return to the US to finish his bachelor’s degree. Some were looking for an easy way to postpone the bleak career search back in the US and just wanted a sabbatical year. Some were running from things and just needed an escape. Some wanted a cultural experience that involved Spanish and needed adventure to satiate their wanderlust. Some wanted a combination.

As for my motivations, I am not sure what I was searching for. All I know is that I wasn’t looking for love. And I wasn’t coming here to figure out if I liked teaching; I already knew that I did. To my own surprise, I’ve recently realized that I might actually be ready to go home (future travel adventures not out of the question), and I'm certain that I'll miss a lot of things here . So perhaps, just perhaps I have found something. Not inner strength but something more elusive, though I might be mistaken.