YOU ARE NOT ALONE

Ritmo de vida

It's hard to believe this is my last night in Buenos Aires, then it's back to South Carolina, and back to my old life. I say "old life" in the sense that coming back to it will be more difficult than leaving it. I've become so accustomed to my life here, and every day this city feels smaller and more familiar, and I feel more connected. But lately I've been getting frustrated with things, experiencing ups and downs and even feeling a little homesick. Maybe it's just the reality of leaving so soon that is tinging everything with sadness. Already friends are leaving, to go home or moving on to other adventures. And I've been waiting around. Waiting in endless lines at the bank, for buses that never come, for trains to run, for the check to arrive, for friends to text you back...waiting until tomorrow, when all this becomes a memory.

But I've gotten so used to the waiting, and the rushing, and time starting and stopping and disappearing and people coming in and out of my life. Waking up, going to class, eating dinner, being with friends, etc. It's so normal, but the pacing is so that nothing ever stays the same. It's funny though, the patterns that you start to notice, as millions of people, myself one of them, cross paths every day. You start to see the same faces: a girl playing guitar downtown who I later saw twice on the E train, a man selling poetry on the 141 who passed me in the street, the old men who wink at me at el Potosi. Random or not, seeing these strangers again and again makes you feel that you're not so alone, that the city is your home, and in a way, you belong as if you'd always been there.

I can't think of anything more to say, except that right now I feel sad, but also nervous and excited and a little uncertain of the journey that's ahead. See you on the other side. Ciao.