"Sola"

According to Google translate: 

Solo(a) (spanish) = single, alone, one, lonely, sole, mere, all alone, lone, lonesome, singular, neat

I think it's interesting that in Spanish they use the same word for lonely and alone, because after my last week here, I may have to tell Spanish that I disagree. 

So I finished with my official program a little over a week ago and after many days of tearful goodbyes and "last ___'s " my program friends left to go home. A while back, I had decided that I wanted to stay and travel for a little after the program ended, and I knew this was going to mean that I would be on my own for a while, but I didn’t realize that leaving my program friends would be so hard.

For those of you who have lived overseas or studied abroad, you understand, these people are your life, your family, for however long you’re there. For those of you who don’t know what it’s like, just think of the most emotionally difficult thing you’ve ever done, something that involved constant self-reflection and questioning, a growing experience of some sort, and think about the people you experienced that with, then you’ve got an idea. I spent every single day with these 17 people, in class, at lunch, coffee, on trips, at bars. We helped each other with translations and homework questions, navigating problems with host families or friends or boys, cultural differences, homesickness, relationship questions, and all made a few bad decisions on the way to defining ourselves. It’s the kind of relationship where you have to get really honest with the people around you very fast, because you have to depend on them. As long as I live, these people will have a special place in my heart, I may not keep in great touch with all of them, but we shared Costa Rica, and you can’t take that away, which means our friendship will always pick up where we left off.

That being said, I was very sad for a few days. I couldn’t just call up a friend and ask them to meet me for coffee in half an hour, or ask if they wanted to go to a movie, or tell them some strange thing I saw that is normal for Ticos, but still out of the ordinary for us. But then something amazing happened…I found out I wasn’t alone after all…Sure my best friends were gone, but there was a whole new untapped community of love waiting to surround me.

I spent more time with my Tico family, eating father’s day lunch together, combing through old family photos, playing with my 3 year old host cousin. I spent time at the school where I teach English, and had my students run to greet me with hugs and yells of “Meri!!!!”. They wrote me letters to take home with me, and the teacher I have worked with all semester invited me over to have dinner at her house.  I found a bigger community of Tico friends than I knew I had, all of who wanted to spend time with me before I leave.  I took a trip on my own to one of my favorite beaches, and met a handful of people in the same situation and we formed weekend-long friendships, ate dinner, sat on the beach, went out dancing, watched movies, climbed waterfalls, and talked about life.

I found that even though my best friends were gone, I was not alone, not even a little bit. And that’s when I knew that I really had found yet another home in this place. Yes, I’ve had lots of fun, traveled a bunch, and taken some classes, but the most important thing is that I became part of a new community, one very different from the ones I’m used to, but filled with the same love.

And even though I’m leaving here in a week and a half, I know I’ll always have a home here to come back to, and that’s a pretty amazing feeling. 


So thank you, to all of you who have been a part of that community, those in Austin, DC, and other parts of the world who kept me connected to my other homes and families, the IFSA crew who lived this with me and knows me better than just about anyone, the Tico friends and family who invited me in to be a part of their world, and those people I met in passing who showed me I wasn't the only one on this journey. It's been fun being a part of your communities, and I'm so excited to continue these relationships and see where they'll go. 


¡Te quiero mucho! (I love you so much!)