All of Me Here

After work, I examine the small cuts adorning my fingers. Tiny nicks made in Brazil look no different than ones made in Arizona. Sometimes I have to laugh at how I spent a year dicing up produce so I could afford to go to Brazil to dice up fish. Other times, I look out over the ocean and am giddy with the knowledge that the only bare and boring rocks I can see here are drowning under every wave. I've never been happier than trekking through the Atlantic Forest, surrounded by unknown flora and coming face to face with the occasional Sagui (who are just as curious as I am)… without a tumbleweed in sight. Despite this I can't help but feel sometimes as if I need a more definite purpose. I was shocked to find one day, pacing my room in Curitiba, a city 5000 miles away from my own and 170 times larger, that I had the same feeling I was trying to run away from back home. It didn't matter that I'd been out all day seeing new sights, trying new foods, and speaking a new language. I was exhausted, my body begging for sleep, and just like all those frustrating nights in Arizona, the familiar urge to get out, go do something, was eating away at me. The feeling that I was exactly where I was not supposed to be, had followed me. For the first time since leaving home, I cried angry tears at how much work I had put into this, only to find that the same soul sucking experience could stick with me no matter how far away I ran. I have to marvel at that, at how similar life can be on one half of the hemisphere to the other. I had no idea my issues were not things I could just leave at home. Now I know that distance makes no difference in the face of changing one's self. Although that knowledge presents a greater problem for me, it's comforting at least to have all of me here. Good parts, and bad.