And just like that, two years flew by. I've had plenty of time to prepare for my departure. I've known that I was going to leave for eight months. I've sold my stuff. Started having goodbye dinners and parties. Finishing off bottles of liquor and stretching that jar of mayonnaise for all it's worth. Realizing I have way, way too much toilet paper. The end is indeed near and it's like I am suddenly realizing just that: the end is near. Frankly, I might not be ready for it.
There are all kind of sudden panics floating in my head. What if Ivan and I don't love our new home, or worse, our love doesn't love it's new home? What if Venezuela, for all it's oddities and downright ridiculousness, is truly the place I love the most and will keep trying to re-experience for years to come? What if I never meet such wonderful friends again in an international post again? If "what ifs" were sharp, I'd puncture my skull with all of them bouncing around my head. It's like I completely forgot that last time, I didn't listen to the "what ifs" and it turned out to be the best thing I've ever done.
However, there is something more permanent and scary about this round of "what ifs". I have to admit there is something about making decisions in your thirties that feels more intense and important, like THESE decisions are going to make or break all of my future happiness and well-being. Certainly, in our twenties, it seems like we have an endless number of start-overs. We could reinvent and reset and our general trajectory seemed unaffected. Not so now. How vastly different 29 and 31 can be. Though I know I will look back at that sentence in ten years, smile wryly and lament my ignorance and flare for dramatics, right now I am feeling like there is just more at stake now. Maybe it's just that the decisions I am making now ARE indeed more permanent, important and less resetable. Do I have kids, or not? Do I stay in Costa Rica, or not? Do I move back to the US eventually, or not? This are big'ums. Big'ums that I can't avoid making, so one way or another, I've got to run with one "what-if" or another.
So why now, today, am I feeling this particular "what-if" state of emergency? Perhaps it's all the babies on my facebook feed or the fact that my departure from VZ is indeed semi-permanent as it is a f-ing difficult country to get back into. Maybe it's just that I have had this incredible life changing experience here and I am not sure how to run my encore. How do you encore life-altering? And more importantly, how do you keep the life-changing energy rolling? Maybe that's why my "what-ifs" are so startling this go round- I am just terrified of losing my inertia.
Boom. There is it. As much as I bitch about this god-forsaken country, it has changed me. It has absolutely shifted my world view, woken my spirit, opened my mind to a world of opportunities and intrinsically changed me. And yes I am 31 and yes my decisions are undoubtedly more high stakes than before and they would be whether I am in Venezuela, Costa Rica or Virginia. But now, I have to not only make big decisions, but I have to make big decisions that keep me going in the direction of awesomeness that my last big decision took me in. I want to keep riding this train and I am so afraid to make a decision that will kick me off the train.
I'm going to take a few deep cleansing breaths. These what-ifs are going to help me finish my liquor bottles that's for sure. Right now my mother would tell me to keep the faith and my father would probably just tell me I am being silly and to take it one day at a time. Both sound pieces of advice. Say a little prayer and take it one day at a time. Okay, fair enough. Today, whiskey and finishing off the peanut butter. Tomorrow rum and maybe give away some toilet paper. And finishing that Spanish homework, because I don't want to add "what-if" my Spanish isn't good enough in Costa Rica to my "what-ifs"! AmIright? :)
