Hola!

Hola! A little about me...I'm a Jesus loving, coffee drinking, relationally driven, culture appreciating, justice seeking, Spanish speaking college student currently living and studying in Cordoba (accent on the first o), Argentina. Bienvenidos! Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoy reading about my adventures, mishaps, successes, and of course, complete failures (because this would be no fun if everything went smoothly).

Monday, December 22, 2014

Coming Home



I’m home.  I came home two weeks early and surprised all of my friends and family and it was wonderful, but the heartbreak of leaving was devastating, and for the most part still is.

My last day in Argentina will forever have a special place in my heart because it was just perfect.  I intentionally woke up early so that I could have one last breakfast with mi abuela and it was a perfect breakfast to end on.  We sat and ate our criollos and drank our tea and had our little conversation with the news on in the background.  I thought back to how at the beginning of my time there, we actually watched the news, but how so quickly our conversation stole the show and we hardly ever actually watched the news anymore.  I sat there and smiled, laughed and talked with her one last time, soaked it all in, and tried to not pay attention to my heart literally breaking on the inside.

After breakfast, I made it my goal to get everything packed and ready (suitcases weighing under 23 pesos each) before lunch, so that I could enjoy the rest of the afternoon and evening with my family.  Just in the nick of time I was able to get all packed and have my last lunch with mi mama and mi abuela.  At that point in the day, I had already cried while packing and was just trying to hold in the tears.  The lunch was so sad.  No one said much of anything until finally mi abuela just looked at me and said “se fue el tiempo demasiado rapido” (“the time went too fast”).  The look in her eyes was just so sad, and for the first time I let myself think about saying goodbye to her later on that night and my heart broke as I responded through tears with “demasiado rapido, no quiero irme” (“too fast, I don’t want to go”).  My heat hurt.  It still hurts, but in that moment the pain was almost unbearable. 

After lunch, aunts and uncles came over to say their goodbyes, so we sat around that little kitchen table one last time, drank mate, and talked about my time in Argentina.  It was wonderful, but at the same time it hit me like a brick the fact that I had to leave these people.  These people who were now my family.  I had to leave my family.  I had to leave them with no determined return date in the future to look forward to.   While suffering from continued heartbreak, I drank my last mates, had my last laughs, and gave my last besos (kisses) to all of my dear loved ones.  They all told me to come back; they said they would be waiting for me with open arms and open doors.  In the midst of this time I had to say goodbye to mi mama because she had to go to a convention thing for the weekend.  It was so sad, but only the first of many hard goodbyes.

After all the visitors left, Flor came over to have my last dinner with mi abuela, mis tias, and I.  We were sitting around the table eating and I was trying to have fake-happy conversation, but I just couldn’t.  My mind was so focused on the goodbyes and I could not snap out of it. 

The plan was that mi tia and Flor would take a taxi with me to the airport, so after dinner Flor and I went to my room to finish packing up my last few things.  Flor brought my suitcases downstairs as I proceeded to fix up my room (and in the process break my closet door, but that’s a different story), and then mi tia came up and said it was time to come down so we could call for a taxi.

I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen to hand mi abuela my house keys and then I turned and saw Flor’s father, brother, and sister waiting there in my kitchen (they had snuck in when I was upstairs) to drive me to the airport.  They drove 6 hours to surprise me to say goodbye one last time. 

In that moment I lost it.

I bawled.  I hugged Flor’s sister, brother, and father (who I refer to as my family and they do the same to me) and I just cried.  I felt so loved, but the more I felt loved the more it hurt that I was leaving.  The more I felt like I was leaving a place that I should never have to leave.  The more I felt like I was leaving home.  I turned back and looked at mi abuela and mis tias and Flor and they were all crying.  A lot.  I hugged them and cried.  I squeezed mi abuela so tightly and just said “gracias” and te quiero” (I love you) over and over and over again.  And she was saying the same things to me.  I must have hugged each of them a million times before I finally worked up the courage to turn from them and get in the car with Flor and her family to leave.  I have NEVER felt heartbreak like that before in my life…it was like so much of me wanted to run back into their arms and stay there forever, stay in that home forever, with my family.  I bawled the whole way to the airport while Flor and her sister just held me in their arms.  I could never have asked to meet more loving, selfless people.

Just when the tears took a pause, we arrived at the airport and the goodbyes began again.  I knew that I would see Flor again when she comes to my house for Christmas, but I didn’t know (and still don’t know) when I would see her family again.  So I cried and they cried and it was so sad, and my heart continued to break.  I hugged them, turned to walk towards security, and then turned around and looked one last time to see their smiles through tears and their final waves and kisses blown to send me on my way. 

My heart was broken.  My heart is broken.  But my heart is so full.  

The fact that the goodbyes were so hard, the fact that I didn’t completely want to come home, the fact that I am experiencing culture shock on the reverse, the fact that this is hard all mean that this experience was amazing.  It was worth it.  I learned, I cried, I grew, I was challenged and tested, I was scared, I was happy, I was sad, I loved, I was loved, I gained a new family, a new house, a new place to call home.  This should be hard.  I should be sad.  But I should also be so happy that it was what it was because it was perfect (at times perfectly horrible) and exactly what God had planned for me.  He painted the picture of my experience in Argentina, He challenged me, He tested me, He gave me a home and people to call my family, He blessed me, and He loved me through all of it.  And how blessed am I to have met people that make crying like that worth it?

So as I sit here now scared, sad, overwhelmed and still heart-broken, I am reminded of the one thing that hasn’t changed during my time in Argentina.  I’m different, how I feel is different, what I believe is different, my perspective is different, home here is different…but God’s love isn’t.  He is firm and stable and the One that I can count on as my true, unchanging home.  Because, let’s be real, I’m already thinking about the next place I can go to, and wherever that is I will probably end up calling that place home as well.  So as I continue this life of calling multiple places home and leaving pieces of my heart in each place, I take comfort in the fact that Our God is the God of all nations and in Him I find a full heart and my forever home.  

2 comments:

  1. Recién hoy se me ocurre leer esto. Sos incríble, Ker. Odio que pronto vamos a tener que despedirnos, por un largo tiempo. Te quiero te quierooo!

    ReplyDelete