The seed of coming to Guatemala to learn Spanish was planted in my head long ago. Almost 10 years ago to be exact. I was 18 years old and a fresham in college at the University of Utah where I was taking a first-year spanish class. I was visiting an art gallery for extra credit that had some spanish art on display and got to talking to the gallery owner. He told me about some of his experiences backpacking through Central and South America and then proceeded to tell me about all of these spanish immersion schools that existed in places like Guatemala. He said Guatemala was the place to go if you want to learn spanish and so here I am 10 years later.
The funny thing is that about two weeks after talking to the art gallery owner, I went out and bought a backpack and was set on using it to head down to Guatemala and learn spanish. So what happened and why did it take me almost 10 years to get here? Life happened... I got busy. I got married,I bought a house, I finished school, I started a career, I bought a car, I got divorced, I decided it was time and here I am... finally! Do I wish I would have come sooner? I´m not sure about that. I can´t help but believe that I´m here at exactly the time I was meant to be here.
Had I come sooner, it would have been a different experience and there´s no telling what that would have been. It´s impossible to say whether it would have been better or worse. I´m the happiest I could ever imagine being right now and for that I believe that this is the right time in the life I have and that´s what´s important!
I´m thankful that I never forgot or discounted the fact that I wanted this trip. I´m thankful to have had people encourage me along the way. I´m thankful to have a job and a boss that allowed me the time off. I´m thankful to my parents, Evin and all those who offered me kind words for getting me through the first few days of loneliness and I´m thankful for all of the great experiences I´ve had and the wonderful people I´ve come to know in the last 4 weeks.
Ironically, now that I´ve written this post, I realized that I didn´t even bring the backpack that I bought 10 years ago specifically for this trip. I have to admit, I brought a rolling suitcase... oh the shame! I guess it just means I´ll have to take some more trips to make sure my backpack gets some good use in the coming years!
Please note, the weird spacing and hanging apostrophes are not due to my imcompetence, but do to the fact that I´m typing on a spanish keyboard where apostrophes aren´t apostrophes, they´re accent marks and I refuse to take the time to make the spacing perfect.
It has been a joy to read your "rantings from the heart." I'm not an Oprah fan but I must say, "Way to go, girl." You are tough. You have conviction. You are adventurous. You have your head on straight. "Way to go, girl," and keep writing the good stuff.
ReplyDelete