I woke up this morning, out of an intense dream, feeling confused (but sufficiently rested). “Where am I?” I thought to myself, as I felt and heard the oscillating fan blowing some relief, the hot morning sun already slinking its way through the gap between our window and its heavy shade. “Oh, yeah,” I said to myself, “I’m in Chile now, and it’s February, and it’s summer." An obvious addendum (though a realization, nonetheless), I thought to myself, “I’m not in Mexico anymore.” With that revelation, I felt a slight pang in my heart. This past week’s logistics of moving had put me into a state of fogginess and autopilot. Emotions were pushed to the side, and now I can register feelings and can come to grips with leaving a place I enjoyed a lot.
Santiago, when compared with Mexico City, is incomparable. So clean, so much quieter, smaller here. Are these good things? Bad things? I can’t tell you right now. Perhaps I’ll never be able to. But it is different.
Our hostel is nice. We’re staying in a cute private cabana unconnected from the rest of the hostel. We’ve met some lovely people from all over the globe, on holiday in South America. I love hearing peoples’ traveling stories. In addition, we’re speaking a lot with the workers of the hostel, gleaning advice about logistics related to living here. My Spanish ear is good (even with heavily accented Chilean Spanish); I understand a lot. Getting the words out of myself, though, is a different story. That’ll come, I hope. Matt’s doing an excellent job with speaking, and I’m feeling proud of him.
Home is an important concept, especially when one's "away from home," or at least it's always been important for me. What does home mean to me right now? Not to mention, what has home meant to me the past five years? We’ve done a lot of moving in that small amount of time. Of course, home will always be synonymous with our beloved Minnesota and our family and friends. But that means home is really, really, REALLY far away, and that can be disconcerting. Sooooo, as terribly dorky as it sounds, I guess home for me has also been defined as Matt, or, our relationship. In the midst of changes and multiple instances of being “in-flux,” and now, in the case of feeling slightly heartbroken over our time in Mexico being a thing of the past, there’s something comforting in knowing that I’m always at home with my Matt.
Puke, barf, how cheesy, no?
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