The Wall
I was told that this would happen, and that if I followed a few simple steps that everything would be fine. I didn't expect it to happen all at once or for it to affect everything, but here I am awake in the middle of the night talking to no one. Here I am writing about "Culture Shock". I didn't think it was possible for this to happen because I was in Chile. I'm in the glorious Chile that is protected by the Andes. The Chile that clawed its way out of a dictatorship and emerged stronger for it. This is the Chile that gave me Dame la Mano by Gabriela Mistral that I would recite under my breath all day in high school. This is the Chile that birthed Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda. This is the Chile that I studied with Dr. Rojas, and the same Chile that America tried to destroy. I'm surrounded by all this history, love, and beauty that I never could have imagined in my wildest dreams. When I got off the plane in Santiago, it felt like returning home from war and hugging your mother for the first time. I felt like I could take on the world, drop everything, and build a whole new life. I was supposed to become the Little Revolutionary and fix all the hate in the world. I was amazed that Chileans were able to smile after being kicked down for so many years. I felt that the culture bathed me in light and made me stronger, beautiful, and better. Now I feel like its an anaconda, squeezing the life out of me. I am up in the middle of the night, 50 feet from the ocean, walking the same roads that once supported legends, and all I want in a ham and cheese sandwich, apple juice, and a freeze pop.
Chile tricked me into thinking all my problems were all in my imagination and that they could no longer teach me because I was too far away. Now all I can think about is how it's all fake. The comfort I felt on the first night, sweating in room 202 of Casa de Maestro was just me believing in magic. In Chile I am beautiful for the first time in a long time, I am smart, funny, witty, and interesting. These are all just smokes and mirrors. This isn't my room, those aren't my dogs, and this isn't my family. They don't love me, they are just providing the I paid for. People always say money can't buy happiness, but you can get pretty damn close if you afford a pair of blinders. On January 14th I go back to being invisible and there is nothing I can do to stop it. The funniest thing is that nothing ever changed, I was just too blinded by the shiny things to see the truth. I'm still being ignored, people still cut me off mid sentence once they lose interest, and I still feel alone. I can't run away from my problems and my twisted view of reality because it's in my brain. The hardest lesson to learn is that nothing can live up to your expectations once you have put it on a pedestal because nothing is "all that" no matter how badly you want it to be. Chile isn't all that and I don't know how to deal with the sadness I feel for having figured it out. It's still beautiful, breathtaking, and dripping in gold, but it isn't all that. This is the same feeling I had when I realized that America wasn't all that and I still haven't gotten over that after years.
This week has been the first time in a long time that I have felt that the lead role instead of the supporting actress. Now I think that feeling will be gone again, just out of reach, close enough to feel the warmth of it, but far enough away that I can't grab it. I don't even feel like I should cry because I mourned that loss many years ago. If you made it this far, please don't comment on this post. Just ignore it like the twitching and the little noises. That's what I do.
Chile tricked me into thinking all my problems were all in my imagination and that they could no longer teach me because I was too far away. Now all I can think about is how it's all fake. The comfort I felt on the first night, sweating in room 202 of Casa de Maestro was just me believing in magic. In Chile I am beautiful for the first time in a long time, I am smart, funny, witty, and interesting. These are all just smokes and mirrors. This isn't my room, those aren't my dogs, and this isn't my family. They don't love me, they are just providing the I paid for. People always say money can't buy happiness, but you can get pretty damn close if you afford a pair of blinders. On January 14th I go back to being invisible and there is nothing I can do to stop it. The funniest thing is that nothing ever changed, I was just too blinded by the shiny things to see the truth. I'm still being ignored, people still cut me off mid sentence once they lose interest, and I still feel alone. I can't run away from my problems and my twisted view of reality because it's in my brain. The hardest lesson to learn is that nothing can live up to your expectations once you have put it on a pedestal because nothing is "all that" no matter how badly you want it to be. Chile isn't all that and I don't know how to deal with the sadness I feel for having figured it out. It's still beautiful, breathtaking, and dripping in gold, but it isn't all that. This is the same feeling I had when I realized that America wasn't all that and I still haven't gotten over that after years.
This week has been the first time in a long time that I have felt that the lead role instead of the supporting actress. Now I think that feeling will be gone again, just out of reach, close enough to feel the warmth of it, but far enough away that I can't grab it. I don't even feel like I should cry because I mourned that loss many years ago. If you made it this far, please don't comment on this post. Just ignore it like the twitching and the little noises. That's what I do.
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