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Gervase Teresa Caycedo

Backpackin' Blogger

I needed to perfect Spanish, fast, so I enrolled in a four-month teaching program sponsored by the U.N. English Opens Doors Program right after graduation, and bought a plane ticket to Chile. I decided to head to South America a month early and backpack while the U.N. was deciding where and what gra...

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Learning to be Still

I’m at an odd place right now. It seems I cannot be still. I have been on edge for the past month. First it was too many changes: a new roommate/suddenly having my best friend back, twice the work load (2 internships and 2 jobs), then it was Thomas’ birthday right smack in the middle of finals and a new assignment from my second internship. So… that was my excuse last week. But why, this week, am I still so ancy? It’s like I’m crawling out of my own skin. So I jump out of bed each morning and meticulously run down my “to do” list, accomplishing and then crossing out small tasks: take dress to dry cleaner, clean room, fix resume, write thank you notes. Then, there’s the larger tasks: book damn flight to South America, give away clothes I never wear, scrub bathroom, etc..

            It is these large tasks which leave me awake at night, I’m assuming. I can’t officially book my flight because I cannot for the life of me decide where to spend my random 3 weeks after Bogota and before Chile....someplace familiar with plenty left to be discovered like Peru? Or someplace new and touristy like Argentina, where I can sip wine and learn to Tango? But, the thing is – I’ll be by myself. And though this is a very exciting chapter in my life and the first time I will have traveled alone (which I feel will be very important to my development as a worldly, free-thinking woman), I want to be careful about where I put myself for 3 weeks. It won’t be like Europe where you can hop on the Eurorail to switch countries and meet 5 new friends who are just like yourself. Transportation is a bit more difficult in South America. You have to be a bit more careful and the busses which you might take around a country are mostly passengered by locals.

            The main issue (which I am avoiding, even here in my blog) is…what if I don’t make any friends? I really don’t want to sightsee alone. I’m a people person. I am always in the company of family and friends, even if I’m not directly socializing with them. I grew up in a hectic house and I live in one now. What if … it turns out that I’m a phony. What if I cannot be alone? Sometimes I think I am embarking on this journey to force myself to be completely alone for the first time in my life. I’m testing myself and I haven’t even left yet and I already hate the idea. Why I am doing this to myself? What is the point of climbing a mountain and then taking in the view alone? Why am I doing this if I will have noone to share it with…?

            But maybe, just maybe, this whole conversation I have with myself every day as I stall booking possibly the most important trip of my life, is the whole point. I want to know myself better. I want to be the best version of myself I can possibly be and I know these 5 months of self-exploration are going to force me to take a long hard look at who I really am --  who I have become and how I can learn to better be the person I know is in there somewhere.

            After Thomas died I lost a piece of myself somewhere and I’ve been working desperately to get it back ever since. Yesterday, as Becca and I were walking the bridge for the first time I let her in on a little secret. “I want this trip to be a time of spiritual exploration for me,” I told her. I want to give it my best shot, because I don’t want to waste the opportunity to find the faith, love and comfort that so many others I know find from a “God.” I don’t argue with people either way. Everyone has their own way. I want to give my heart a chance to connect to this “God” with whom I’ve never felt a connection. I have to say I’ve tried, and while India would surely be a better country to plop myself, I have chosen the entire continent of South America! I can go wherever I wish. That is a gift, a blessing, an opportunity and I do not intend to waste it. Feeling fearful is a good sign. I am trying something truly new and testing my limits. I want to live and I want to grow old and feel like I have lived the life I had always imagined. I don’t have too many expectations, just to live the life less traveled. I refuse to take the easy way out of my pain which is still lingering over a year after my brother’s death. I have decided to pack all my emotional baggage and check it at the Atlanta Airport and make it sit with me for months until I find myself at peace again. Maybe the tango will help, or maybe it will be the children at the school where I will teach, or maybe I will return to Ayacucho and visit all the wonderful friends and children I felt so connected to one year ago. Wherever I go, I will find it. And I will learn to be still.