Another American Holiday came and went and I hardly noticed, until a few days after when everyone started posting their photos of costumes and pumpkins and parties. It made me homesick. By the time I get home in the end of 2013, I will have missed three Halloweens. That seems like a stupid thing to miss, but it just sort of brings up all the things I'm missing at the moment, like the fun of being a 20-something-year-old in some city, working and hanging out with friends, living in an apartment and cooking for myself. All of those things seem like a privilege now, a life you lead if you are really really lucky. I know I am on a giant adventure, learning things and experiencing things that most people never experience. I am grateful, but I am also reaching that point in my service where I just feel tired. I've been here for almost 14 months and I miss my home. I actually had a dream the other night about the magic of taking laundry out of a dryer when it is still warm, is clean and smells good, and just putting it on my body. That seems so trivial, but rainy season has started again so my clothes take forever to dry and are usually a little damp when I finally just take them off the line. It is so hard to get them clean and smelling good when I wash them myself. I really can't wait to do laundry.
And what about washing dishes when I get home? Is the sink inside? Am I going to be rained on while I wash the dishes? Is there a sponge or do I have to use my fingernails? Do I have to walk through mud to get to the sink? Who could possibly be bothered by doing dishes when you get to be inside, use a dishwasher, and not find random internal organs from previously gutted chickens or guinea pigs in the drain?
I'm just so excited to go home, to be around all the people that love me the most and be reassured that I haven't lost my place at home. I want to hear how everyone is doing, catch back up on everything I've missed. I'm excited to have Christmas and do all the Christmasy things our family does for the first time in two years. I want to bake cookies, I want to DRIVE, I want to decorate the Christmas tree, I want to drink really delicious beer, go shopping in stores that have clothes long enough for me, sit in front of our woodstove, hug my mom, see my friends. I'm so so excited to go home.
And yet, at the same time, I'm also sort of freaked out. What is going to be different? How much have I missed? Am I going to feel weird in my own home, with my own family, in my own country? Is my spot still there waiting for me to fill it up again? How hard is it going to be to come back to Peru after being home? And in addition to what seems to me like such silly anxieties, I am also worried about how little time there is left before I go home for the holidays. I have SO much to do and so little time to do it! I am currently sick and trying to pull everything off, but I'm worried I'm going to leave some loose ends and that makes me nervous.
Really, I think I need a nap.
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