Wednesday, January 16, 2013

a year ago...

Last year around this very same time I was sitting in an airport, computer for my company and my two overbearing suitcases stowed in transit, awaiting my next flight.

I was caught up in speechless revelry, lost in the thrill of people-watching and brimming with gratitude, because I was on my way.

I was just a few short hours from walking into that small airport and embracing my sisters, for the second time.

Just mere hours away from stepping foot into a city of over a million, my home away from home.

And today, I'm on the other side of the world, you could say.

I'm sitting here with that same computer for company, letting myself reminisce about my fully alive heart, about those that I came to love.

One might think you come back from the field and you get over it, this norm of yours now becomes your new norm and those brown-eyed beauties are just a thing of your past.

But that's far from the truth.

I spend most of my waking moments with Mexico, out of sight for the moment, yes, but not out of mind. And well, if I'm going to be completely vulnerable with you, my eyes have been full of tears lately. My heart has been gaping with an open wound of missing the only world I've come to know as home.

It's been a year and three months since I've held out my arms and caught the sweet little hungry girls running up to me, held the sweet mothers whose souls are poured out for their children- a year and three months since I've stepped foot in the Baja. That's the longest time that has ever separated my visits for seven years.

It's been six months since I've been in Morelia, Mexico and today marks my second anniversary of knowing the beauty of NOE, the beauty of running head-first into the unknown city, I met through a few pages in a book.

I'm homesick for the field I left behind, but even still I carry it with me.

There are moments from the past, that beckon my attention at random, and sometimes they just can't be ignored. I'm compelled to return there, even if just for a minute.

My fifteen year-old self would have been highly doubtful that a trip to a Mexican orphanage would change a single thing in my life, but it didn't just change a thing, it wrecked my entire world. 

I discovered with what little Spanish knowledge I had at that time, that my heart was set on not just returning once or twice, but my heart was built for Mexico.

I was made to wake to the cowbells, to fall asleep with a never-quiet city, to lose myself in a foreign tongue, to teach brimming with creativity, I was made for Mexico. 

I miss you today and everyday, Mexico. Today it's just a little harder, because a year ago I would have been reuniting with my loves and my heart. So don't you forget it, please.


My norm has done nothing to erase you, in fact, I think my ties to you are all the more stronger because of the distance. You wrecked my entire world and stole my heart, and I will always love you. Always.



Truth is, we were just avoiding goodbyes, 
accompanied by silence and our broken sighs. 
Five, then four, quickly became three, 
and it began to take all of me--
to hold it all in, 
beneath my thick skin. . . 

And you said, it was time, 
walking together, we went, 
hearts already spent. 
We stood in that same place, 
tears streaming down, leaving their trace. 
Holding on, not letting go. 
Begging for Your very presence to be bestowed. 

Face in hands, trying to understand. 
All but having to walk away...
knowing the longer we spent; the longer we'd stay. 

Leaving another goodbye, for the next, 
tears began falling, like all the rest.
A couple minutes passed,
and they were the last. 

The door opened to close, behind the both of you, 
and the sobs began to come, it was all I could do. 

And just like that, I was left with two more goodbyes, 
and heavily swollen eyes. 

A week has passed, 
and the missing still outlasts. 

But I'm carrying you in my heart everyday, 
and that is precisely where you will always stay. 

A part of my heart belongs to you, it's true. 
God used you to open my eyes...
find beauty and joy in place of my questioning why's. 

I didn't know such a love exists-
for me to have and to hold. 
Thankfully, I heeded the call and didn't resist-
or I would've never known such a love, to break the mold. 
-June 2011

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