“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.”
-Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran pg. 336
I have reached the final days of my time in Sri Lanka. I cannot believe that it is ending. My emotions are in constant contradiction; I feel both happy and sad simultaneously. Happy to return home and see everyone that I love and have been missing for so long. Happy to eat my mom’s cooking and drive my car. Happy to not sweat everyday and take warm showers with good water pressure and sleep in my bed.
But so sad. Sad to say goodbye to the friends I have made here. Sad to not wake up to the sound of the fish man yelling “Malu! Malu!” into his megaphone as he rides his bicycle down the street. Sad to say farewell to thambili, string hoppers, and kiribat. Sad not to hear Singhala being spoken every day. Sad to no longer feel the warmth of the Sri Lankan people, like the feeling of genuine kindness I‘ve had when holding hands with a person I’ve just met for the entire five minutes of our conversation; or being invited into a complete strangers home for tea just because they live next door to the person you were supposed to meet. Sad to say goodbye to a place that I have come to love deeply and that I now consider home.
It’s as if an epic battle of opposing emotions is going on inside of me at all times. I’m completely overwhelmed, excited, saddened, and afraid. I don’t want to have to explain my experience to people in less than 30 seconds. I know I will be asked to but I don’t think I can. How can I reduce nine months of my life into half a minute? How can I sum up an entire country to people who don’t even know where it is on the map? How can I explain that I am still me, but so different than the me they knew before? I have gained so much knowledge and understanding that cannot be expressed to others who are strangers to Sri Lanka, strangers to the growth you experience when you discover yourself again but this time on different terms than ever before, strangers to living in a country and culture entirely different than anything you have experienced before? How can I? Impossible. (And if you’ve never been to Sri Lanka, those last two short sentences may not register with the significance that they would if you have lived here.)
Basically, I don’t know how to deal. I don’t know how to deal now and I don’t know how I’m going to deal when I get back. I’m preparing for the best and the worst. I think Azar Nafisi expressed it perfectly, I know I will never be the same me again. And that scares the crap out of me.
Jessi, these are some beautiful reflections you are expressing. The Azar Nasifi quote is so fitting and so true.... leaving a place is such an intense experience, perhaps more intense then arriving somewhere new because there is often a powerful feeling of loss and nostalgia and sadness and change. But is life ever static? I dont think so. Things are constantly shifting and transforming and evolving, as are we as individuals. And just remember that connections are interminable and can transcend time and space. Nobody can ever take away the bonds you've created in Sri Lanka or the memories you'll take with you. And in terms of having to put your experience into words.... forget about it. you dont have to explain anything to anyone. The Jess Vaughn you are today is different from last year, true, but aren;t we all changing and developing all the time? You're experience in Sri Lanka, while intense and drastic, is not necessarily any more or less valid or transformative then any other experience anyone else is having on this earth so no need to 'explain' it in 30 seconds. Just take things day by day and you will deal just fine. And I feel fully confident that the depth of your experience will shine through to the world as soon as anyone comes in contact with the beautiful, stunning, intelligent, sensitive, positive, spiritual, reflective, mature, light-hearted, and ambitious woman you have become.
ReplyDeleteSo, Boston, get ready.... ;0)