Heart to heart with Loneliness

It´s October. It´s fall in NY, and somehow I find myself nostalgic. But yet, I´m not, I know that the world I left a year and a half ago is changed. I´m changed. I´m anxious too - I have 9 months left of my service. I know this seems like a long time to you, heck that´s an entire pregnancy cycle I guess... But to me, it´s all coming fast and yet so slow at the same time, which is resulting in a minor self-reflection crisis.

This minor self-reflection crisis has led me to the following potential conclusions for my future: getting a Masters in Spain/Belgium, becoming a hermit and writing a shit ton, studying Buddhism in Nepal followed by a sneak entry into Tibet, becoming a real socialist in Cuba, going back to NYC for a 9-5 job, working in the amazon with displaced indigenous populations, being lazy in Brazil, or extending my service for another year. I guess now you understand why this is a crisis right?

I know what you want to tell me - ¨just follow my heart¨ right? But what happens when you´re heart is splintered in a few different places at once? Adaptability is suppose to be a good thing right? But what happens when you´ve become so adaptable that you yourself start to have an identity crisis?

I guess that´s my problem. This is an identity crisis. Damn it, I should have known this would come one day. The problem is this: I´m no longer the Esther you used to know. I´m not even the Esther that I know.

Maybe this crisis all came to a head with the wedding of a close friend of mine´s in San Diego. I hadn´t been back to the U.S. in one year, and I was nervous. I was nervous about civilization, reconnecting, and socializing to people other than my dog. The wedding was good, and seeing old friends was great. But yet, I found myself to be out of place, a different person, not being able to relate to friends or things around me. The only things I could get myself excited about talking was well, hum, Guatemala, to people who well, don´t really care about Guatemala. So you can
imagine that as I saw familiar volcano peaks on my plane back into Guatemala, I exhaled a smile of comfort and relief.


And I guess that´s what I´m wondering... How will I ever be able to relate to a world who probably could give a rat´s hooha about two years of my life that have meant the world to me? Thus the hermit option (seriously it´s on the top 3 choice list along with Nepalese Buddhism).

So yes, I´m adaptable, but do I really want to reintegrate myself into a world that does´t really care about the person I´ve become? I suppose that´s where my heart is, in the middle of the splinters. That´s the billion dollar question.

Well, what can I say, you probably thought you were going to read about my actual experiences and not about my feelings. Sorry, but you´re kind of my journal once in a while too.

I´ll keep you updated, unless you don´t hear from me ever again (that means I went with the hermit option).

Saludos,

Esther