The Afterlife

I've been going to write something about reaching the one month mark for a few days now. It just hasn't happened for one reason or another. Now that I've sat down to finally write something, someone will probably call me. I might just have to tell them to go away. Anyway.

As I sit here looking at the 28 days, sprawling on the calendar before me, I can't help but think of how quickly February went by. Over the last few months I've spoken to a lot of people and the predominant message I have passed on has been, "I miss you and I can't wait to come home!" because, right then, caught up in the joy of talking to someone I haven't seen in months or the frustration of one foreign difficulty or another, it's the truth. However, right now I find myself very torn.

On one hand, I cannot wait to go home. I am ready for a change. My host family has been great but I think we're beginning to wear on each other's nerves, at least my father and I (we don't seem to interpret each other's indirect speech acts very well) and I've run into what every college student runs into after living on their own for a while and then coming home. Except with a new family that has more rules than I've lived with since before I was ten. Mom, Dad, I love you.

On the other hand, which I periodically find waving up and down in a frantic attempt to be noticed, I am not done here. I have so much more to learn. The problem with learning a language is that the more time you spend learning it and the better you get, the harder it becomes to continue studying in your original home. I feel like I've just recently become really comfortable with a lot of different situations and now (for rather distant values of 'now') I'm leaving. That can be explained away and justified in about ten different ways, so in truth, no vale nada, pero asi es.

I have also been thinking about what it will be like coming home. The more I think about it, the more I really don't know what to expect and the more it begins to seem almost more foreign than coming to Costa Rica. When I came down here, I had left the states to spend various amounts of time in Spanish speaking countries on several occasions. I knew roughly what to expect. I have never returned home after five months studying abroad. Most of the time I've been down here, the actual reality of the prospect of returning to a life that I've, in some ways, abandoned for five months, was overshadowed by the excitement of seeing all those people that I had likewise abandoned. Suddenly, I'm realizing that there will be more than happy reunions and a resurgence of juice in my diet, and that I'm not sure what that "more" will entail.

I do know there will be a long, hot, steamy shower and sleeping past 8:00 for the first time in four months...and I'm pretty excited.