Pictures of the Past

The past couple days or week have been really hard. Just re-arranging my life for about five weeks while I'm home for winter break. I'm still figuring out where I am interning in NYC in the summer and what classes I am taking next semester, and what I need to do next to pull it together, and to have some damn fun. I'm finding myself to be extremely quiet and serious, and introverted, and to that I say WTF! I've decided after Christmas I'm buying a Nikon, and that's that. I am stashing all of my work money and returning to school, for my sixth semester...
Today I also had lunch with my family and my great-grandparents from my mother's side of the family. They are possibly the most loving adorable people I have ever seen. My great-grandfather crafts little wood figurines, and puts googly eyes on them and smiles and funny sayings, and it just showed me to slow down a bit, enjoy the simple things before its too late. Occasionally my ggpa will talk about WWll and how he was stationed as a 20-year-old in the Philippines and I just think about it imagine being 20 and being told you had to fight in that war. Incredible, hes a purple heart because of it.
I had quite a nostalgic night. I never really thought more about Costa Rica after I had left last January. I had an amazing time a year ago and that was that, but for some reason it popped into my head again. The feeling I had before I left the days after Christmas re-materialized. It is a feeling that could be described as amazement, child-like excitement, and complete trust and faith that it would work out, something making your heart beat a little faster, a bit stronger. I couldn't sleep the night before I left. I don't know why I decided to think about this almost exactly a year later. I look back at myself a year ago, and not much has changed, maybe I'm a little more pre-occupied, and a bit more tight laced on how I run my life, but I'm still the same I guess, which makes me wonder why I am not doing something crazy like this again. That trip re-enforced the idea that I was meant to be on my feet out an about. I could never work in an office and stare at a computer screen all day. I found myself loving life because I could immerse myself with a different culture, a different language, and a fond appreciation of a lifestyle much less materialistic, and much more environmentally friendly. Basically I don't think or believer that in the near future I could settle down, own a bunch of things, and have an established non-mobile sort of lifestyle. After college I will be moving, around the world hopefully.
Tonight I had vivid images of galloping on a horse on dominicalita beach, and riding through fields of palm trees, coconut trees, sloths, tucans, macaws, monkeys and wild boars. I thought of how fortunate I was to be able to go in the first place, how great my best-friend who invited me is and how truly beautiful life can be. The people in Costa Rica live so simply, and so beautifully at the same time. I remember getting of the airplane and first thanking God my head didn't explode, on the decent. I flew eight hours alone, and ended up in the airport alone for quite some time, but was taken back by the mountains. They were up to 13,000 feet tall, which I had never seen before...only for me to later find out we would wind and curve in a packed SUV over these mountains for four hours, playing chicken with trailer trucks lugging stuff up and over to the pacific. Scary as hell.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was the day we went to a beach called, "Las Ventanas" where monkeys swing on vines above the 100 foot sedimentary cliffs. After a day at the beach with caves that have water rushing in to the beach and out to the ocean, which you can swim in, we left only to find the SUV wouldn't start. We then hitched a ride with two guys from Wisconsin to a gas station. We needed to get back to the place we were staying on top of a mountain before it was too late, and it was about 20 miles down the road. Well, a VW from the 60s ended up picking us up, with the doors being held together by bungee chords, and it chugged alone the pacific coast as it drove us back at dusk. We all knew it, we would have to hike up the mountain to the house we were staying in, there was no way that this van would make it up. All we could do was laugh, because that day was such an adventure. Only the day before there was one of the biggest earthquakes Costa Rica had to date and was extremely destructive--luckily enough I didn't even feel it, other parts of the country did though.
So the van dropped us off--at the bottom of the mountain--in the dark. I had a dress and flip flops on. Once again I found myself laughing and cringing at the same time, because this was possibly the steepest mountain and road I had ever seen. Also it was dangerous, because being the jungle, there are large cats and such, that are hungry. We made it, and I have to say this is one of the best adventures I ever had. We rode horses to waterfalls, and hiked through the rainforest and swam in the ocean with dolphins. In the past year I can't think of a time that I had been happier, more excited about the future, living in the very moment. That was the start of the year, and this is the end.
This year I have learned a lot about myself and life, and that is isn't some whimsical thing that I had always thought it was. I became increasingly cynical and along with that became becoming increasingly independent but busy. I also increasingly questioned myself, my beliefs, my family, the way I understand things--myself. But let me tell you, we all set goals for ourselves, climbing points. Its as if your climbing a rock wall and you say that in the next 30 seconds you better be 20 feet higher and you feel the rope give and you end up going back 10 feet. And you realize that it isn't all that bad, because you've still got time, and you've got the rope to help you out. That was my year. So here I am on December 22,and I know a couple things, 1. I have the most amazing friends, 2. I want to be a journalist, and 3. What I want out of this life, and what I want to use it for.

I you guys had a good year, and learned something new about yourself, or did something for someone, made a difference, made a new friend, or maybe turned to God in times of despair (such as what I did). There is so much to do, learn, see and live. Here's to a happy and healthy end of the year, and onto the next decade. That is so weird to say...I still remember the millennium. I was 10 and wore shiny metallic pastel blue pants that matched what I thought was "so millennium." I was also obsessed with the Backstreet Boys.