The reason I've always kept a blog of my travels is to mediate the coming home process. I write a blog because I want to share with you what I'm up to, but I also write it because it's too huge of a task for me to come back and describe 7 months of life in one conversation. It's always overwhelming for me to come home from a trip and have dozens of different people asking me questions about my experience.
I come from a family of story tellers. Our family gatherings are characterized by sitting around and popcorn story telling. One person's story reminds somebody else of a story and so on down the line for hours. I love this about my family. I have stories for days, and if I can grab your attention long enough, you're bound to hear a handful of them. I am a total story teller.
But there's something sacred about travel for me. There's something un-tell-able about my experiences in other countries. It's not the sight seeing or tourist attractions or the exotic crystal blue water I might have swam in that mean anything to me. Those stories are easy to tell. "I went to this town, ate this food, saw this building, got the t-shirt." It's the stories that are hard to tell, the moments that are impossible to capture in words or pictures that make my travel experiences important. The stories people share with me, the hugs, the laughter, the tears. Those are the memories that I hold sacred in my heart, those are the memories I want to share with you, and those are the memories that are precisely impossible to describe.
In telling you my stories, I also run the risk of digging deep and sharing one of those sacred moments, and have you twist it and turn it and steal it. This happens often. Never intentionally, and always out of love and interest. But it still happens just the same.
I might have a beautiful moment to share about a sweet child I've fallen in love with. And then you ask me about the parents and the poverty and the immigration crisis and "What are you going to do to change what's happening?" All good questions. All important questions. But all I wanted to do, was bring you into that moment to see if you could catch a glimpse of its joy and love - and now I am racking my brain for answers and reliving hurtful, hateful realities of life in my slum. I don't have many answers. Mostly I just have moments.
Don't let that stop you from wondering and asking. Just know that if I retreat, or stop you, it's not because I think any less of you or your interrogation skills. It's because I'm probably experiencing stimulus overload, and we're getting too close to those sacred memories that I want to keep just for me. And if I'm at a loss for words, just know that it's because I can't quite figure out how to describe the healing power of my house mom's smile or the soothing pat-pat rhythm of tortillas being made up and down the street or the exhaustion of feeling powerless to change the story of violence or the intense heartache of looking straight into a mother's eyes after she has lost a child.
In coming back, I've found I'm a lot quieter than I was 7 months ago. Life in La Esperanza is very hectic. It's nearly impossible to catch a minute alone. Sometimes I'm able to find an abandoned stairwell to hide in, but it only lasts a few precious minutes before a volunteer needs my help or a cat yells at me for attention. I learned recently that being introverted means that you draw your energy from within yourself, not from being around others. That's definitely me. I need time to myself to recharge my batteries, and I haven't been alone in 7 months. So, my batteries have basically exploded. Right now, I'm finding more peace in listening to stories than sharing them. When social ettiqutte threatens to demand that I share my un-tell-able moments, I get emotional and my brain starts short circuiting.
I really do want to tell you everything. But how can I explain certain things when our frames of reference are so different? How can I say that I feel overwhelmed by this overly full fridge with food that is rotting when my fridge back in Esperanza has only 1 tomato in it? How can I tell you that this drama you've wrapped yourself in over your sister not understanding you seems pointless when I've heard the screams of someone standing over their murdered sister? How can I tell you that I feel uncomfortable with the comments you make about immigration from the safety of your home, when I live in the middle of the gang violence that is driving kids north? I don't want to offend you or make your reality seem less important. Because it's not. I'm just jumping from one extreme to the other, and I haven't acclimated yet. Jet lag, if you will. My frame of reference has been shaken up and spit out in a very different place from where I started.
Life changes you. This experience has changed me. I can feel the DNA shift in my blood. I know that I'll bounce back. Not to where I was - but to wherever my new normal will land me.
That was the very long, story-telly way of letting you know that one day - maybe tomorrow over coffee or maybe in 3 months at Thanksgiving - I will tell you about my time in Guatemala. But until then, I appreciate your patience. I am grateful for you allowing me the silence, for not pummeling me with questions when I tear up randomly at dinner, and for respecting the moments that I choose to keep sacred.
Here's a few pictures from the last 7 months. No big stories attached, just little moments that made me smile.
