"Where did the time go?" "It feels like just yesterday I was..."
Actually, none of these apply to my situation, because I have been so busy, going non stop since I got back here in January.
The days are long, and the weeks are short, and before you know it I am looking May in the face.
School takes up 40+ hours of my week. But come Friday, I am literally on the first bus out of here. I hate losing track of all of the days. I find myself reflecting on a bus ride, or having an afternoon cafecito in town and thinking I really need to write this down, I really need to back over the week. That run in with the gentleman who complimented my Spanish, or that sunset in Uvita, or how great it was when Kelsey and Tim visited and spent the weekend on the lake, or the sweet dog that showed up at school and laid next to me for hours while I worked, or the fast friends and bad-luck-turned-to-blessings of that trip to Panama, or the good karma I had last weekend with David and Irisol in Nosara, or the progress made by one of my students who spoke almost NO English last year but can carry on a conversation with me now. But the truth is, there is no way to chronicle all of the things that happen to me daily, weekly, monthly. It reminds me of one of those Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows "Oleka" or the idea that:
Our lives are built of the same few notes, repeated over and over. It’s not a grand symphony, full of surprises. It’s a song sung in canon, that simply carries on, until the tune gets stuck in your head. But then the verse changes over, and for the life of you, you can’t remember how it’s supposed to go.
This is why I left my job, my quaint little Plaza Midwood duplex, and my dog in Charlotte: to avoid OLEKA. This is why I am watching my niece grow up via Whatsapp videos and pictures: To live each day differently and live in the moment and all of those other cliche notions of adventure. Why I thought I had to move to Costa Rica to do this, I do not know. It certainly helps keep things interesting.
But, just like always, the tune carries on here, too. Sometimes the tune here is the grand symphony, full of surprises. But sometimes, it's not. Please don't take that as a complaint - it is simply an observation that routine becomes us. I am much more aware and thoughtful of the idiosyncrasies now. Sometimes I jot them down in my journal or calendar, sometimes I even snap a photo. But sometimes, nothing.
These experiences are still mine though, even if I don't write them down, right? They happened. They are on the little collector's shelf in my mind of Experiences. It might be a blur of "untitled" and unorganized files (have you SEEN my computer documents?) but they are there. And in the end, they are the patchwork of the quilt I am creating. Not just "that time I lived abroad in Costa Rica" but the person I am becoming as a whole, the reason why I started this chapter in my life to begin with.
(For Posterity, David Koller and Irisol Gonzalez.)
Pura Vida
Peace and Love
Hakuna Matata
