On to another one

I meant to blog while I was in Oaxaca, Mexico, or to post my journal entries after the fact, like I did for Israel/Palestine, but it didn't happen and my thoughts are too focused on Buenos Aires and New York City and my beautiful friends who trekked out in the frigid cold last night to kick it with me while I packed til 3 am....

Perhaps I will blog later about Oaxaca. Let me just say that it was an amazing experience, and I am not avoiding writing on it because it was too insignificant; rather, it was too epic. To be honest, I don't think I've processed it yet.

I am on to another one. I leave tonight for Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I will be studying Spanish and living for four months. My mom is here and has been here for the past three days, which puts my mind at ease and makes it easier to go abroad. Not that I see her much these days, but I will spend this coming summer in New York (21, summertime, and the city?!), so the homesickness is mediated by her presence here in my apartment.

As much as I love NYC, I think that I've been in a funk. I feel my light diminishing. It will be good for me to spend some time away, drinking in the world and maybe finding a bit more of myself, so that I can exist again in this amazing, bustling city and hold onto me.

I have two confessions to make. Confession #1: I am terrified that my Spanish is not good enough for me to succeed in all my classes in Spanish, and just to live in a Spanish-speaking country. Oaxaca should've taught me that I'll be fine, since I was doing pretty well with communicating with everyone. I like to say that I understand fluently, but when I'm sitting in a literary analysis class in Spanish, will that hold true? Confession #2: Secretly, part of me doesn't want to go. I love my friends here and my life here and some of my friends keep shaking their heads at me and telling me that I move around too much, I don't know how to sit still, etc. (If you're a Lilly's-blog-reader, you know that all of this began with my friend's comment this summer about me not knowing how to stay in one place. Remember that? Well, our entire circle of friends picked up that notion, and they love to give me shit for it all the time.) Anyhow, I know that if I stayed, I would always wonder what studying abroad would've been like, and a part of me would always regret staying. I know that despite what my experience is like I will not regret making the decision to go abroad... but it's still hard to say goodbye so often. Like Jo said last night as we hugged goodbye at 3 in the morning, though: this is not goodbye, it's just a "see you later."

See you later! Stay tuned... I'll be posting regularly from Baires.

In love, admiration, and solidarity,

L