Closing One Huge Chapter

It is not until I'm now sitting at the airport, waiting to board the plane to my new life that I truly realize how much I've enjoyed my life in Costa Rica. In my former apartment, I truly had a home. I lived with my best friend, spent much time socializing with awesome friends and acquaintances. In the last days, I was even dating someone crazy enough to want to spend time with me knowing I was leaving. My family was being more than over supportive, and my 6 month old niece smiled at me and played with my hair like I was her new favorite person in the world. However, I think it is all very romantic because I'm leaving. Once I told everyone I had decided to go to Italy for 10 months, life became this romantic tale that ends today, the moment I step on that plane.

It does not matter what little could change on the surface: life is not going to be the same when I come back. I'm ten months apart from it, exposed to new stimuli daily, and there's no way my new environment does not leave a scratch on me. I should confess, I want Cagliari to leave me scarred, not in the same way London did, but hungrier for life, even more adventurous and far more human. I am going to Italy and allowing the Mediterranean and its lifestyle to make love to me, and refine my appreciation of life itself. Other than learning Italian, seeking to spend as much time as possible at the beach, and a few previously arranged trips, I do not have this new part of my life scripted. I believe is much better that way. My friends tell me I'll get fatter for eating all the wonderful food. It might be so. My friends also say I will come back showing off my Italian. I hope I learn better than to flaunt my new romance tongue, but I do hope I acquired good communication and writing skills. My friends say I'll fall in love, only if the guy has a yacht and a beach house, I joke, My friends say I'll be really different when I come back, if I come back at all. There they are partially wrong, as I know now no matter where I am, I haven't given up in Costa Rica and the people I called mine just yet. Life will show itself to me. The lady at the Italian embassy in Costa Rica told me I couldn't go wrong with this experience, and I want to cling to that. 

I don't want to go to my new life carrying regrets, though. What I’ve done to myself is forgiven, but I’m concerned to the cracks I never got to fix as a result of my interactions with others. I want to confess the things that still bother me about the last chapters (the loose ends sort of) and truly get a blank slate. These are situations that should have been addressed privately, but I'm a fool, and I'll just confess them in public, hoping that they reach the right ears (eyes?) sometime.

-Once I told someone that The Kill were opening Pink's concert, but when I got there, it turns out it was the Kin opening for Pink. I had read the name wrong, but I had posted on her FB wall that I was going to see them both and think of her. She probably found out that the Kill never opened for Pink and must think I'm an idiot now. I never got to clarify the situation out of embarrassment. Sorry, Ale. I've learned to double check info now before being overly enthusiastic now.

-I created this event for meeting up with people I only had met briefly socially, and there was this guy who said he was up for it. We met in a workshop for publishing books, and at the time he seemed pretty congenial. From all the list, he was the one I never called, and I even missed his birthday. Once I saw him in a bar, and I attempted to say hello to him, but he - no surprise- turn his head to pretend he hadn't seemed me and even looked annoyed by my presence. It hit me I had been a douche with him, and I never got to say sorry because I thought at the moment I'll just let it pass. But it haunted me a little, until today. Sorry, Diego. Truly good people aren't always treated fairly, but I'm trying to be more aware of others around me now.

-Kiara, I'm sorry I'm going to miss your first words and your first steps. Maybe I can make it up to you by teaching you your first words in a foreign language and guiding you in your first steps in a foreign country?

-Karo, I owe you that takoyaki. I honestly don't know where you get those in San José. Next time around. Brian, I'm sorry I wasn't the friend you expected in your tough times. We need to learn how to start anew, but I'm willing.

-I'm sorry for not spending more time with the last bunch of volunteers who arrived in the country. They are very likeable people, but my head was somewhere else, and they found me wishing for freedom. I hope one day they understand it wasn't that I didn't like them or my job. They arrived when my heart was somewhere else and my gaze upon the future, I'm hippie like that.

-Tell Kevin I cared for him more than I never told him, fucked up games and all. He should have kept my Disneyland mug. Tell the other Isaac I wish I had told him how attractive I thought he was and how I made a fool of myself by playing all cocky that night we spent together. I can only watch him from distance now thinking I'll turn to stone waiting for a second time that it won't happen.  Don't tell Jonathan and Manuel anything. I still have to learn that attraction is not always reciprocal, and they probably had to deal with me more than they never wanted. Tell Alo he was the right person by my side at the end, and how I hate that I could have spent more time with him than I did, but I was just trying not to get too attached to someone who has handsome and cute, and probably insane for seeing me growing fat and saying only he still thought I was one hot guy.

-Luis, I'm sorry I left some material stuff behind knowing you'll get rid of them for me. Expect a big time apology (food) when I'm back.

As for the rest, I think I've made my peace with everybody else, and look forward meeting new people in a more socially responsible way. The lights go off on this stage, and the curtain is falling. I'll take a nap some thousand meters above the ground, and reach a destination far away to open yet another chapter of my life, hoping I mess up a little less, and get a step closer to the person I aspire to become.

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