I Wrote Something

So it’s been three-and-half months since I wrote anything here. There are multiple reasons for this. First off, let’s call a spade a spade: I am lazy, and writing is work. Another reason would probably be that as much as I would love to document things, I am generally so busy being in the life thing that I just don’t think to step outside myself to create future nostalgia opportunities. Before I was an exchange student I read some blogs to get a sense of what it might be like. I noticed a general trend of posts becoming less frequent and then stopping, so I’m not surprised I did the same. A lot of them said that things just started to feel normal, that things became like part of normal life. I think that’s what’s intended with a high-school level exchange. That you immerse and assimilate, grow into this new life.

That’s sort of what’s happened to me except not at all. Rather than start feeling like my life here is my normal life, my entire concept of normality has disappeared. Maybe that sounds like some really great non-conformist sentiment, but this feeling is a whole lot bigger than that. I’d say it’s sort of like the moment you realize you’re no longer a child. But when you have this moment, it’s not like you’ve crossed over a thin line and suddenly you’re a fully realized adult. Far from it. You’re just in nowhere-land.

I am in nowhere-land. This is not my normal life. I’m not telling lies here—I have not assimilated to Ecuadorian culture. I have adjusted; I get along just fine. But I do not belong here, and to pretend that I do would have to mean acting like someone I’m just not, and I will never be comfortable with that. But that’s not to say I haven’t changed. Oh yes, I have changed. And the thing is that I’ve passed some point-of-no-return where there is no going home. I would say that about three months ago I could have gone home and it would have been different; there would have been a lot of little surface things: I would have been more aware of this, that would have bothered me when it didn’t before. But somewhere between then and now, the entire world shifted under my feet and I woke up in an entire new reality. I say that I’ve changed, but maybe I really haven’t, maybe people never really change, maybe just our perspectives change. And when your perspective changes, your entire universe is one that resembles your familiar before, but is inherently different in a way that defies description.

My life here didn’t become normal; it became real. It’s part of a new reality that I have to navigate. One where I no longer get the comfort of unquestioned beliefs. There is no default. Home feels like such a distant place; the only America I can feel connected to is the one I remember through child’s eyes, the one I will always cherish. The person I suddenly am isn’t part of there, isn’t part of here, isn’t part of anywhere. Everything is so big and so small all in the same moment. Even surrounded by people I love, I’ve never felt so alone. I’ve never felt so confidently alone. It’s a strange sense of being completely lost and yet absolutely certain that you will arrive.

That’s another reason I haven’t written here—everything happening in my head is so far beyond me that I don’t even know how to begin. I am (as I suppose I always have been) living two lives, the one outside my head and the one inside. A lot of things have happened in the outside life that I could have written about here no problem: factual descriptions of trips, holidays, cultural differences, etc. I could have written it all and trimmed the edges with emotion and humor and it would have been fine. But then there’s this whole other inner life where things have just been beyond words. And the two worlds mesh and affect each other and it’s so exhausting to flesh it all out, and even when I do, do I really want to share it? For what? To inform people back home? What’s home? This is my life and things happen that are important to me and now that everything has become so real, it’s kind of private. I just can’t see this exchange as like this year apart from everything where I’m like, “Wow! Ecuador! Look at that!” Now it’s part of this weird life that becomes who I am.

Does any of this make sense to anyone reading it? I have no idea.

I’m going home in a little less than eight weeks. Some days that seems like nothing, some days it still seems like quite a while. How do I feel about going home? Great question. First off, there is no home. The life I had built for myself has essentially dissolved. Everyone has moved away, high school is over. I find it eerie how a little world so tightly woven as high school just dissipates so quickly. Like it was never really there at all. It seemed so real then—what does it say about our present? If you’re wondering, I’m doing a year at Meramec and then transferring to somewhere. Don’t ask me where I’m looking to transfer; I don’t have an answer for you. I think I’ll be arriving come June in a place that resembles one I used to know but isn’t. I can’t see it as going back; there is no going back. It’s part of this whole future that’s even shakier than my present.

Like I said, I’m nowhere. But I’m not lost. I always know where I’m going, I’m just never aware.