Adventures in Costa Rica: Be Here.

So we've all been here for over a month, and I think everyone has finally settled down. Everyone's personalities are starting to show, and we have a cluster of strange and wonderful people here. I'm sure we're going to (and probably already have) get on each other's nerves, but in the long-run I think we got lucky. For ten strangers who thought a semester in Costa Rica would be a great experience- we seem to be working very well together. Things could have gone very wrong very quickly, but I think that it takes a certain kind of personality, or at least some tick- to leave home for a semester and go somewhere entirely new. Because this country is very different from home- and without that tick, I don't think any of us would make it.

After a month away, there are a few things I've come to miss. I miss a few things very profoundly, and I miss a lot of stupid things.

I'd have to put familiarity at the top of the list of things that I miss. There's something very comfortable about knowing a place or a person. Here, the people, the place, the food- it's all new. I am not afraid of the newness, but it is exhausting. You don't have to work with things that you know. You don't have to figure them out, to learn them, adjust to them. My home is not my home, my friends here are not the friends that I have known for years. They're strangers that I've known for a month.

Do not misunderstand, I am still enjoying myself. I just ache a little (sometimes a lot) for my mom's hands, my papa's mustache on my cheek, for my roommate's morning fumblings, the clinking of my dogs's collars.

I don't miss many things. I don't miss my iPhone. I don't miss my bed. I don't miss my desk or my shower or my car. I miss my kitchen. I miss remembering things with my friends.

I miss leftovers. I miss judo. I miss English.

Among the stupid things I miss, my kitchen, pause-able TV, and flushing toilet paper probably top the list.

These little bits of homesickness crept up on me like a sunset. Inching little by little towards the horizon- into my awareness- until suddenly the sun has disappeared- I am struck with how little I have here and how much I left at home.

The entire group now has jokes revolving around our experience. I am sure that when the time comes to leave, I will not want to go. For now, I am trying my best to roll with the punches. I am not letting my longing for home intrude upon how much I am enjoying this experience. For now, I am trying my best to be here- and love it.