The Elephant In the Room

I don’t know what you want to hear. I could relate all that I’ve done since I last blogged, but I feel like that would be ignoring the elephant in the room.

I’m leaving … and whatever I would write, that fact would be buried under all the sentences, lurking between the lines.

I’ve always liked writing. Sometimes when I've felt something deeply I would sit down and tell myself to write a poem in order to express myself better, to experience some kind of catharsis. But so often I would start with what was pounding in my heart and would find that I was trapped by very plain and simple language. My feelings may have been intense, but my language was not complex and routine. I feel the same way now when I write, “I’m leaving.” Such a simple sentence with so much weight.

I’ve been thinking that spending three months in another country when you speak the language, know a few people and are working on a fascinating project, can be torture. It is torture because something happens in three months; some kind of glue is formed naturally. I’m not sure from where it comes or when it comes, but the recipe for you soul sticking to foreign land for sure has the requirement that your soul must sit there for three months.

I try to write happy or interesting things when I blog and I’ve left out a lot of the negative, but the truth is that up until a month ago, I had days when I wanted to be in Sacramento badly. HOME. I didn’t feel the same “magic” as I did last summer. Many of the kids I had loved and lived for had been re-assigned to other orphanages. Many days I was the only volunteer at the orphanage. I felt so frustrated with the Romanian language that I felt like I somehow gave-up on it, though I still used it daily … but now when I think about returning I am confused.

Recently I have been volunteering in a small classroom for six of the older orphan boys in the center. I LOVE THE CLASSROOM! It is such a unique little place with a sweet security, and it brings new purpose to the lives of these boys, many of them actually men. Try putting 19-year-old boys in a school when they’ve never been in one their whole lives and you will find that there is a lot of drama to be had, but as you learn the peculiarities of each child, and the children begin to understand structure and security, there is such a sweet, motherly/teachery feeling that develops. It is one of those feelings that fill up the tank, and make your life a song. I find that the boys can almost be controlled by praise, so I have become one of their main cheerleaders. Also, as my friend Ariana teaches the clas,s I cheer her on, giving her a smile when the boys give her black stares, trying to be an extra pair of arms for her as much as I can. I feel that I would lie down on the floor if she needed to be a little taller. Because I believe in her and what she’s doing, I would do almost anything to help her, even to my own detriment.

And there are somethings I don’t like about the U.S., but once I go there, I am trapped. I can’t get away from the U.S. when I am home. It’s bothering me how alone I will feel when I’m there. When the streets are empty, and there aren’t a dozen people to meet along the road to where you’re going. I’m going to sadly miss working with people, monitoring the process of children that I’m dreaming for. I’m going to miss the company, even when it’s bad. I dread being all alone again, and for anybody who’s traveled, I’m going to miss that the people around me won’t miss what I miss. They won’t long for a world they’ve never entered.

I don’t think I’m going to like how clean people are in the U.S. I won’t like how they can leave the shoes they wore outside in the house as well. I’m going to hate hearing hour-long conversations about seemingly pointless you-tube videos and going to parties when there’s no one in the room who obviously needs help. I’m going to miss trying to speak Romanian. I’m going to miss the questions I can ask here without really offending anyone. I’m going to hate it when I eat at a restaurant and the waitress/waiter is being abnormally kind and attentive. I’m going to miss sweeter fruit with more seeds and eating peppers. And really I’m going to miss the boys at the school in the orphanage. I just don’t like them growing without me. I don’t like that Alexandra Sa. is at the orphanage right now in her bed, staring at the ceiling when she could be speaking and dancing. I’m going to miss the sincerity that seems more common here.

What I don’t like about America is shallowness, being bored because we have everything we need, being too nice, and being afraid of insulting others and therefore holding back on what we really think and feel. Oh, how guilty I am. But I want home, too, I think. I just have to wait till I get there to see if I really wanted home as badly as I imagined when I was away.