So, it’s been about three months since I’ve been home from Venezuela, and I’d be lying if I said that the experiences there don’t still impact me to this day.  I still think about Venezuela every day, but thoughts are more subtle now, and, truthfully, I am less captivated by the thought of returning.  Of course, I would still love to go back one day, but I’m to the point where, even if money was no object, I’m not sure I would be on a plane there tomorrow.  Yes, the infatuation has worn off, but the effects of such a life-altering experience are still far from over. I am now feeling a different sort of emotion; It’s comparable to guilt (but without the bad connotation that comes with that word).  Basically, I feel bad that I don’t miss it as much as I did before…  but I know that this is okay.   It’s okay to feel this guilt, because I know I still love Venezuela and my Venezuelan friends very much, but I also know that it’s okay, not to mention healthy, to not feel head-over-heels enamored with it/them anymore.  Being in Venezuela was such an eye-opening, whirlwind of an experience, that, for a while, I was becoming disillusioned with feeling that it had all been a dream.  A while back, when I was still in Venezuela, I even wrote in a post about how I felt like I was living someone else’s life.

But I don’t feel that way anymore.  it really was my life. And it still is. And as much as the memories may feel like a dreams now, I know that they’re not.  So, this is where I’m at right now: rather than thinking of my experiences in Venezuela as having ended, I like to think of them as a collective “beginning.”  See, study abroad is basically what you make it–if you want it to be that one crazy time in your twenties where you left your life for little only to return and fall back into the same monotonous routines, it can be.  But if you want it to be the beginning of never taking the opportunities we have, especially in this country, to experience vastness and diversity of this world–of God’s creation–for granted, it can be that, as well.  Obviously, I’m leaning heavily towards the latter option (although I really place no judgment on the former).  Okay, but seriously, friends, I’m not saying that perhaps this abroad experience has got me thinking about going to or even living in other countries–I’m saying that, in my mind, there is no other option.  

Venezuela, te prometo que nos vemos de nuevo en el futuro pero no s� cuando, amore.  I had plans to return in December, but a voice ever so faint continues to whisper the words “not yet” and I have no choice but to listen.  I do, however, have a next step in mind.  All I can say now is that, with prayer and guidance, we’ll see where that leads…

–

A magnificent sunset accompanied my mid-air, homeward-bound reflection on la locura that was Venezuela. How fitting. 

Una puesta de sol magnificente me acompan�a durante el vuelo que me llev� a los EEUU. Estaba pensando mucho en todo que pas� en venezuela y me recordaba que con cada atardecer, hay un amanecer que sigue – con cada terminar, hay que empezar de nuevo.  
Creo que nunca me cansar� de este perspectivo…

Location: Pennsylvania