One year already?

     I can't believe that it's now been a year since I came back from Chile! I have successfully completed all three years of my exchange. The applying year, the actually away year, and the coming back year. So now I am supposed to move on. -? I still have the urge to cling to my exchange self, my life, my stories, my experiences. This year it felt ok to be moving on and making new friends and settling back in because that is what one is supposed to do. I was just trying to survive reverse culture shock. But now, I am officially freed from all of the duties of being an exchange student. I am just another teenager, and my exchange is a distant memory.
     However, when I look at pictures from my exchange, or eat avocado, or see a math problem on my SAT that I learned how to solve in Chile, it all comes flooding back to me and I just want to go back in time and re-live that year over, and over again. Like Groundhogs Day. :) Que rico.
     But instead, I usually just begin to tell some story that is totally irrelevant to everyone else, and they smile at me as if sarcastically showing their interest. And so the logical Willow slaps the over-excited Willow on the hand, and I return to reality and move forward.
     Sometimes I really do wish I could go back. Not just back to Chile, because my Laura wouldn't be there, and my host family wouldn't be in Temuco anyway. I want to go back to my year. When it felt like in June the world would explode, and every new day was a challenge for my ambassador self. But, how boring would that be? To go back? I already did that. I have a new chapter of my life to explore, new challenges to scale, new lessons to breach. I will soon be an adult and go off to college to live on my own for the rest of my life, not just a year.
     So, I think of that and push on. I push on and I begin the next chapter of my saga. The applying year, the four away years, and then when the world will explode in June.

My Week in 4

4. High Points: the promise of spring break. "shopping" for a free prom dress. laser cutting class.
3. Low Points: track meet. stressful English exam/presentation. the promise of spring break.
2. Me Moment: walking home from track practice with shins wrapped in ice bags, holding a painting.
1. Rebound Moment: Looking at two simple pictures and feeling my heart fill with emotions which I can't even describe, and just when I thought I was free, wishing that I was back.

who is She?

who is that Girl I see in all those photos on my desktop?
I recognize Her from somewhere. well,
everywhere.
I've seen her so many times, yet I don't really
have any idea who She was.

I know who I am.
of course
I mean, I'm Me,
right?

My priorities are:
school,
family,
running,
art.

but who is She?
She seems like She has nothing in common with Me.

Her priorities are:
friends,
um,
and well,
how should I know?

Mine and Her's don't line up anyway.

well, I guess we have some things in common.

passion for travel,
focus on the future,
kindness?

you've seen Her? yes?
do you know Her?
pa!
probably better than I do.

well,
it's a good thing She made this blog...

Now is The Good

After my last blog post, I realized that it really must seem like my life really sucks all the time. Some youth exchange ambassador I am! So, first I just wanted you to know that my life is pretty good most of the time. But when it's good, it just feels normal. But when I'm having a bad day, I feel the urge to document my sorrow. For what reason? I'm not really sure. 

So, even though I find myself in the heat of the end of the semester, with upcoming finals and miles of homework, I found myself enjoying this week quite a lot. I seem to be getting back into the groove of things. My friends laugh at things I find funny, and I don't feel left out of the loop. They're sweet. And actually, I find myself enjoying the full swing of school and full IB. It's hard, but it's also engaging. My classes are far more interesting than anything that I've had in a while. I'm a nerd, and it's a lost cause, but I really like school at the moment. 

It's also nice to be home. Do I miss Chile? Yes. of course. But do I wish I wasn't here, in the place I've spent now almost 16 of my 17 years in? Watching the snow fall down and being in control of almost my entire life? With traditions I understand now more than ever? No, I don't. It's nice to be back. 

I had a presentation for my Rotary Club this past Wednesday. It went well. Here's the link to the powerpoint I used below. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tbAwNKyye0lauQL94fwTbjmoyqAqOw4BEmOyHl8gXms/edit?usp=sharing 

The Irrational

I was working on my presentation for my Rotary club here in South Bend, and I looked up my Chilean district to try and find pictures. I found YEP, which is what they call RYE there, and I looked and I saw photos of us, the district's exchange students.

Only when I clicked the picture to see it up close and to download it, I realized that those faces staring back at me were not the ones I knew. They were not us. They were the next group. The people there now. Which makes perfect sense, why would they not be the people on the website? They've been there for like half a year.

However, I had the sudden urge to cry. I guess it just hit me that it's over. You know? Like its actually over. And it's been over. The world has kept spinning. I'm glad that there are new kids who have the opportunity to experience what we did... but these last few months have just seemed like a continuation of my exchange. I'm doing something else for awhile, and then I'll go back. Back to Chile. And all my exchange friends will be waiting in Chile for me. Barely having aged a day.
But, like, I just realized that that's not true. They're all at home. Living their lives, and having their own culture shocks, in their own countries. Changing, and growing, and it'll never be the same. I'll never be in Patagonia jumping on a boat, or watching the sunset on Easter Island. I'll never be with all those losers again.

But duh, Willow.
That's a stupid thought. Why would you just expect the world to freeze and wait for your return???
Time goes on and you're only an ant trying to keep up with it.

But some part inside of me is extremely irrational. And no matter how hard I try, I cannot stop it from thinking otherwise.

Consolation

I hadn't talked to my host family in a while. I'm one of those millennials who has a phobia of taking on the phone. I occasionally would just text my host mom or my host sister. But my beautiful, beautiful host sister calls me with messenger, and then she calls me again when I don't answer, and then she calls me again. Usually I just hang up and text her, but I decided on like her fourth try to answer. 

And oooh her voice! It was so good to hear her sweet voice. With its fast paced, Chilean accent, and the way it brings back so many memories. 

I miss her so much. I miss Chile. I miss all those other people from the life I led half way across the globe. Sometimes it feels like I was scooped up out of the Midwest and plopped down in Chile. Then scooped out of Chile and back into the Midwest. Leaving a hole. Like a transplanted plant. O algo simular. I have a role as a nerdy American student. A sister. A family member. And another as a gringa chilena. An ambassador. A friend. I can't fill both my roles at the same time, but when I'm talking to Camilla and doing Spanish homework simultaneously, I feel pretty damn close. And it's a good feeling to have. 

untitled

Life is hard, but it is also good. I have good days, and I have bad days, and I have ok days (which are most days). My last post was from a bad day, so I mainly just wanted to clarify that not all of my days are that kind of day. I do struggle with finding my own identity. It becomes especially challenging in a place where everyone knows me. It's not that they only know the "old me", it's not like no one is trying, I'm just saying that they knew me before I went on exchange, and they know me now.

Ok, I'm doing a really bad job of explaining this aren't I? Well, in Chile, I had to try to be myself in a place where I knew no one, and no one knew me, and I didn't know how I was supposed to act, nor did I have any experience with how it should go. That was pretty damn hard. But it's almost harder now that I find myself trying to do the same thing in a place where just about everyone knows me, I know just about everyone, and I should, after living 15 of my 16 years of life here, know how things work and what I should be doing.

Well, this post has been a rather interesting one, and I apologize if you read it hoping for something of a glacier moving quality. But, I'm going to publish it anyway because... documentation.

yeah.

but you know what?
life is ok. And I can live with ok.