(To be honest, I fought the urge to write this post considering how late it is and lack of willingness to give into the emotion; but let's face it: we all saw this coming.)
It's 2:24 am EST on October 11th in Tallahassee, FL. Today, I got only 5 hours of sleep, worked for 3 hours, sent an email in hopes of becoming a future announcer for FSU Baseball; went to class in the morning; took a nap; streamed Game 3 of the NLDS to watch the Dodgers lose to the Washington Nationals; went to a GBM (General Body Meeting) for the Colombian Student Union; and played lots and lots of Guitar.
Today was an average day in my new life on Campus at Florida State University. That is, until I tried going to sleep.
I've been known to go to sleep with music playing in the background. You can ask any of my roommates from my time abroad and before. It's just supposed to help me lull myself to sleep as I focus on the calmer songs. Common albums to fall asleep to include: John Mayer's Room for Squares, Gavin DeGraw's Chariot, and Billy Joel's The Essential Billy Joel. However, tonight, I picked a different album. I'm not sure what called me to it, but my ears needed to hear this. I tapped on the search bar in the Spotify app: O-N-C-E-S-O-U-N-D was all I needed to type in before it predicted my request.
And damn...
The influence that Music can have on you. It's in-des-cribable.
For those who don't know, the play/movie Once follows an Irish musician in Dublin who pursues his dream and falls in love with the girl who helps him get there. It's also the same soundtrack I listened to on the bus ride in to the heart of Dublin from the Dublin International Airport. As my eyes hid behind heavy eyelids, I imagined myself, sitting on the second story of the double-decker bus again. I remember the clouds that congregated over the town when we drove by fields of green grass and clovers. Irish flags hung from the windowsills of little stores as we got closer to center of town. My mind jumped to nighttime in Dublin: walking along the River Liffey. The scenery was a dark blue reflection with bright vignettes from gold lights that accented the shadows in the cracks of old Dublin town.
I yearn to go back to Dublin. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I yearn to go back to Europe. My heart, as I tried to go to sleep, felt so... incomplete(?). Suddenly, I felt this strange feeling that I had felt before–– homesickness. But the weird thing is, I wasn't missing Los Angeles. All I could think about was Valencia, and Madrid, and London, and Dublin, and Italy, and all the other places I had been to in the past year. This is what I call "Third-Party Home Sickness." I miss all the little places I've left my heart in around the world. I miss the accessibility and freedom to be able to travel over the weekends; the spontaneous excursions and "fam dinners" our apartments would do. The ability to walk to a bar/pub at midnight and order a round with your friends, just because you had nothing else to do. All the memories started rushing back abrasively, and I don't know how to cope with it.
It's crazy to see how quickly that year went by. To be honest, it's a little infuriating. It feels like yesterday my parents and I were still weighing my bags for the first time and I hadn't been introduced to my favorite word ("vale" [bah-LEH] - which means "okay" in Spanish), yet.
And now here I am. At 2:54 AM EST in Tallahassee. I remember the very end of my time abroad as being very rushed. We had already been abroad for so long, and the "wow"-factor was very much depleted. All we could talk about was how amazing campus was going to be, who we were going to be living with, the football games, the tailgating, jobs, classes, blah, blah, blah.
All that was and is still very exciting. I love my life here in Tally. I love my job. My classes. The friends that I still keep in contact with (and even those that I have fallen out of contact with). But damn. Those daily Facebook notifications of what happened in the past are just daily reminders of how long ago my year abroad really was.
On top of that, I work in the International Programs office here on campus, which is the very program that sent on the journey of lifetime. I cannot stress how much I love working here. I am basically getting paid to talk about my year abroad with other people who have been abroad to get other students to go abroad. Just, wow.
However, I'd be lying if I said it didn't have one major downside, though: I'm surrounded by Valencia and London and the idea traveling in general on a daily basis. I could talk for hours on hours about walking through plazas, eating Paella all the time, and experiencing Fallas or seeing a plethora of theater productions, museums, and being able to walk to the River Thames in a matter of 10 minutes. But there's nothing I'd love more than to actually be there and do all that all over again.
My favorite phone calls that I get from prospective parents and students are the ones that ask "So tell me about Valencia/London." My goodness, child. My heart lights up. I begin talking like a madman, but slow enough to where the person can understand me. Those phone calls, though, are also the most emotionally draining ones. I put a lot heart into talking about Valencia and London so much. All I want to ask them is, "hey, while you're buying your student's flight ticket, could yah buy me one, too?... TAKE ME WITH YOU!"
This whole adjustment situation has been one long rollercoaster. Some days, I couldn't imagine being anywhere else than in Tallahassee, FL. Because, like I said, life here is pretty great. (At least I think so.) I have many new friends here and am heavily involved with work and other organizations. But there are still many moments when there's nowhere else I'd rather be than the cities I used to call home. Back when things were simpler. When I could walk into the common room and hang out with my apart-mates and other friends on a daily basis, because that was so normal. When I could walk a few steps to a friend's apartment in a matter of seconds. When living in closer spaces meant have closer friendships.
Now, I walk out of my single bedroom to an empty, messy common area; my roommates are three strangers whom I've become fairly close friends with, but we have our own lives on campus that keep us occupied. Hanging out with friends from the year abroad now becomes a process of phone tag, arranging car rides, and, eventually cancelled plans and hurt feelings; some friends forget that a phone works two ways; some say they will, and they don't; some try more than others; and others, well... It's almost as if you didn't just spend a year in a foreign country with them––rather your friendship is just as foreign as the countries you were in together.
I'm not telling you this to make you sad, but it's a sad truth that I'd like to think is not only experienced by me. My take on it though, is that it's just a part of life, I guess. This is the reality of our constantly-changing present. And all we can do is our part to try to keep those who want to stay in our lives and not focus on those who don't.
It's now 3:38 AM EST, and I'm just as awake as I was 12 hours ago. I'm really glad I decided to write this. I feel like I've kept this bottled in for a while, and I haven't put pen to paper in a while. Hell, I didn't even write a single post about my time in London. (Not because it was a crappy time; rather it's really shitty of me that I didn't take the time to write more while I was there, but I'll save that for a future post.) I realize that not many people will make it this far in this post. And that's fine. I understand. I've written a lot, and I'm sure I sound a lot like I'm whining about some imperfect life that I'm ungrateful for. On the contrary: I'm just missing a moment in time when I felt like I had the freedom to appreciate what God has blessed my short-timeline of a life with. I could not have asked for a better life. For a better experience. I could not ask for more. But damn, maybe just a little more time...
After listening to Once, I changed my soundtrack selection to that of my favorite movie ever: About Time. It's a great British film about appreciating the time we're given and living it to the fullest. And in it, there's a beautiful song called the Luckiest, by Ben Folds. The song starts with these lyrics:
"I don't get many things right the first time.
In fact, I am told that a lot.
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and the falls
Brought me here.
... And I know
That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest."
My life could have gone in many different directions. Each decision impacting the next, impacting the next, impacting the next. I look back today at the things I've done; What I've accomplished; Whom I've met; Where I've been. And I can't imagine having a better outcome. I am in a good place, right now. And just because certainly one of the high points of my life is now a year in the past, that doesn't mean that life will now
be dull. There are more memories to be made; more adventures to be had; and a long life ahead.
It's 4:00 AM on the dot and I can feel myself getting progressively more tired. I have a meeting in four hours with a guidance counselor and a full day of classes. I'll probably play more guitar. Go to the library to brush up on somethings I might have forgotten. Probably pick up a few more hours at work. And I guess we'll see what happens in between. That's the fun part I guess. That's what I've learned...
I look from the present at the influence my past will have on my future.
And damn. I really am,
The luckiest.
'Til our roads meet again,
Christian Camacho
The Traveling 'Nole
