Bricks

It's hard to believe that I get on a plane a week from tomorrow. I land in DC in the wee hours of the morning and then head up to Boston with mom! Are you Boston folks excited? Have you planned out my full itinerary, including a tour of the neighborhoods where I can live next year and every single kind of international cuisine imaginable? I hope so!

Has it really been almost 90 days? I'm so excited for the list I get to create next: "Things for mom to pack so that I feel like a city girl instead of a jungle beauty." This will include a hair dryer, nice jeans, and matching bra and underwear! Not too much to ask for, right? I expect to have a little culture/weather/amenities shock when I get back to the states... but more on that later!

Looking back to Week 1 of my Honduran adventure, I never anticipated feeling this comfortable and being this happy living in the jungle. Going to a Third World country, learning Spanish and volunteering was always a dream of mine. And here I am, living the dream.

And yes, everything is as effervescent as I describe in my blog.

I've learned that there are so many bricks in our lives that slowly drown us (thanks, Ben Folds) and we can't be brought down by our inadequacies and weaknesses. To "be here now" and also to progress, I've needed to be stronger than I thought I could be, set my own bar, and surpass the expectations of others and myself. Every part of me yearns to give, grow, and continue to make the most out of every experience. It feels so enlivening to create something as magnificent as my life here.

There is nothing ironic about the person I am becoming, for this is who I've been all along, only now I feel amplified.

I leave you with lyrics from "Pig" by Dave Matthews:

Oh, isn't it strange how we move our lives for another day, like skipping a beat?

What if a great wave should wash us all away? Just thinking out loud.

Don't mean to dwell on this dying thing, but look at my blood.

It's alive right now, and deep and sweet within, pouring through our veins.

Intoxicated, moving wine to tears and drinking it deep.

Then an evening spent dancing, it's you and me...

Is this not enough? This blessed sip of life, is it not enough?

Staring down at the ground, then complain and pray for more from above,

you greedy little pig.

Stop, just watch your world trickle away. Oh, it's your problem now.

It'll all be dead and gone in a few short years.

Just love will open our eyes. Just love will put the hope back in our minds

much more than we could ever know. Oh, so don't burn the day away.

Come sister, my brother, shake up your bones, shake up your feet.

I'm saying open up and let the rain come pouring in.

Wash out this tired notion that the best is yet to come.

But while you're dancing on the ground, don't think of when you're gone.

And don't burn the day away...

Look, here are we on this starry night, staring into space.

And I must say, I feel as small as dust lying down here.

What point could there be troubling?

Head down wondering what will become of me?

Why concern with what we cannot see?

But no reason to abandon it. The time is short but that's all right.

Maybe I'll go in the middle of the night.

Take your hands from your eyes, my love

All good things must come to an end some time, but don't burn the day away.

Mosquito Bites: 1

Final Score: Void - Honduras has done so much for me, and I'm not sure which team gets the points.