You never know how hard something is until you have to come to terms with it. Nicaragua wasn't the place for me. I was unaware of how damaging it was, letting it hold me back until it was time to leave.
The day that I left Nicaragua, I couldn't help but feel my world was falling apart. However, I was soon to find out how it was actually falling together. I came to think that my parents were evil creatures depriving me of my teenage life, my friends, and the world as I knew it.
I was 15-years-old. I had no idea of who I was, and I was afraid of the unknown. Coming to South America meant that I had to get used to a completely different lifestyle, and as soon as we landed I was filled with uncertainty. Of course, I wanted to fit in, but how could I be myself If I didn't know who I was? There were all kinds of people there, and you could feel the warmth and acceptance in the atmosphere.
I was coming from a place where everything you did was judged. You could barely be yourself. So, in Bolivia, I found a judgement-free environment and learned that you can be yourself no matter what. I would go to poetry recitals; I was good at it, and they would go on and tell me how proud they were of me. Before Bolivia, no one but my family had told me that they were proud of something I had achieved. Together, we strived to be better people, we pushed each other to succeed. Of course, it wasn't perfect, it was still high school. There was drama, there were boys, there were heartaches and fights with friends. Yet I managed to find my confidence, and I learned to value friendships. They gave me that.
Unfortunately, Bolivia happened in the blink of an eye. Anyone who saw most of my friends at the airport at three in the morning telling me goodbye - on a school day - would've thought I was born and raised in Bolivia. But it was only a year and a half, the time that we spent together, and knowing how much they appreciated me as a friend and as a person, made me appreciate them much more. This time, it really hurt to let go. Like the kind of pain that you can feel building up in your stomach and through your bones. Not the "I hate my parents for making me leave" kind of pain, but the "I'll really miss it here" kind of pain. I left a big piece of myself back there.
On the plane, I was hurting so much for leaving behind something that I truly loved. For the first time, it wasn't about me leaving, it was about leaving them. Again, I was face to face with uncertainty.
Learning to let go the hard way, hasn't been easy, it still isn't. I've had to make letting go one of my strengths because it eases the pain of moving around. As much as it hurt to leave my new town which I had grown so fond of, I was adding more experiences and opportunities to the life that I'm building.
My favorite part of the moving process has always been unpacking. When we get the boxes delivered to our new home, the feeling of sliding a knife through the tape of a brown box is satisfying. Even more exciting is opening it and finding inside thousands of memories you haven't seen in three months. You get your books back, the good-bye letters your friends sent you, and everything that makes you feel like yourself again.
In my time in Honduras, I learned a lot about standing up for myself. At first, it was difficult, since one of the girls from my group of friends made it her high school mission to bully me. She might not have realized how harming that was, and probably neither did my friends. But that's when I realized I was strong enough to protect myself, and that I had friends who wouldn't leave me just for standing up to someone who was hurting me, even if that someone was a friend of theirs.
More importantly, I learned that no guy is important enough to tell you to change who you are, or to call you "fat" just because he's too skinny. And I could not have realized that without my friends by my side. Sometimes all you need is some tough love from your friends to see the truth. I started loving myself, and appreciating who I was becoming.
By the time my family and I had spent a full year in Honduras, I knew it was only a matter of time before they broke the news that we were moving again. Although I was considering leaving Honduras to go off to college, I still wanted my parents to stay, because this was the place I wanted to come back to. Gosh, was I loving the place!
I was nowhere ready to pack the memories inside boxes, and so my parents, understanding my emotions, worked it out so that I could wait until prom before I had to pack and go. They kind of took the "Can I please leave after prom?" request literally, because I left the morning after the dance. Unable to say goodbye because everyone was either asleep or still out of it, I changed out of my dress and hopped into the car.
Moving to Panama was perhaps the easiest moving process of all. I was mentally prepared to open a new chapter of my life. I was ready to wave goodbye to my high school self. So, the plan was for me to stay for two years in Panama and then transfer to Tallahassee. On the other hand, my parents would stay.
Panama was all about the adventures. I found the wild part of me, the part that would go to the Virgin Islands with friends and just enjoy the moment. I took risks, I traveled, I cherished friends. My parents lived a couple of minutes away from my dorm, and every time my roommates and I ran out of food, we would go invade their kitchen. It was fun to have the full freshman experience, with my parents close to me. It was the perfect balance of family and college life.
It was unexpected when we broke the news to each other. I told them that I was transferring to Mercyhurst for my sophomore year, and dad said he was being transferred to Mexico. Again, that meant bye-bye to another country that I would not come back to for breaks.
As I was spending the summer in Nicaragua before transferring, I felt sad, but it wasn't because Iwas moving. For the first time I had decided to leave, it wasn't something that I had to do against my will. Suddenly, it hit me, I was sad because they were leaving. Because I always find the way to make the pain of moving around all about myself, I cried nonstop to a friend the night before I left. I would go on and on about how I would get to the new house in Mexico and be unable to locate coffee mugs. It was emotionally draining to go to a place where I wouldn't even own a room, where my things would be stored in boxes and never unpacked.
With puffy red eyes I handed my plane ticket to the airport staff, and he said, "You'll love it there!"
Somehow, the words hit me in a weird way. I pulled myself together, and shifted my mind toward them. Who cares if I can't find a coffee mug when I wake up tomorrow morning? My little sister has to face the dreadful uncertainty of a new school. My mother has to find her way in a new country and has to put her job on hold until she can settle down and resume. My father has to make his way through streets that he doesn't know. My brother will start high school in a place he knows nothing about. All of them have to make new friends. It gets lonely for them as well. Whenever we moved, I always had my mom and dad, but they leave their friends behind just so they could give us a better future. I always thought it wasn't easy for me, but I never fully grasped how hard it was for them, too. That's when it stopped being about me. That's when I found out I was becoming a better person. Being selfless felt great.
When I came to Mexico, I found out three things. First, the coffee mugs are in the drawer above the coffee machine. Second, my memories upgraded from brown box to plastic box, which I open every time I go. And third, there's nothing better than guacamole.
I was finding myself among all these countries, figuring out who I am, who I wish to become. Just like the song says, "I get by with a little help from my friends," and I always will. Especially if my mom and dad are part of them. I had to let myself break and then put myself back together several times. I learned to take in, and I learned to let go. I stood up for myself, learned to be true to who I was. I developed a sense for adventure and risk. I got to know amazing places and wonderful people. And to think, that back in the day, I thought that leaving Nicaragua was the end of my world. Well, it was only the beginning.
If moving around from country to country, or at least having my parents do so, means that I'll discover something new about myself, then, I'm happy to say that even if I'll miss Mexico's tacos, I'm excited by the news that they're moving yet again.
