by LG
The weekend before I left for orientation at Tufts, my best friend drove down to Connecticut from Vermont to pay me a visit. Previously, Laurel and I saw each other every day for hours at a time. At that point, it had been about three months since I had last been in the same room as her, and we were on the precipice of nearly four more. On Monday morning as she loaded up the Subaru to head back up north, we stood looking at each other with tears streaming down our cheeks. “When I see you next, everything’s going to be different,” I told her. It’s a tad dramatic, but it’s rung true.
Since I said goodbye to Laurel, I’ve integrated myself into a group of people I can only describe as my Tufts University-assigned best friends. While I’d like to think our paths would cross in any universe, I’m endlessly grateful to Tisch College for guiding them together in this one. We’re all from different parts of the world, are interested in different things, and have different stories, but we all share the desire to adventure and understand a way of life different from our own. This community has taught me to love, trust, and breathe more deeply. From the very beginning, there’s been so much love in this house of strangers.
This net of love and support we’ve woven has encouraged me to tiptoe to the edge of familiarity more often. Fierce independence has always been one of my defining characteristics, but here it’s taken a different sort of form. I often spend hours wandering around Urubamba semi-aimlessly, simply seeing whatever there is to see, making buddies where I can. I’m not particularly confident in my Spanish-speaking abilities. Still, I’ve learned to give them a whirl so I don’t miss out on opportunities to connect with the people sharing this beautiful valley with me. It’s through these everyday adventures I made friends with Hortansea – an older Urubamban woman who shares my love for an intricate crochet stitch, and have had several awkward interactions that have ended with the line “You really don’t understand much, do you?”. Regardless, many of my most fulfilling moments here have taken place when I’ve overcome the butterflies of talking to a true stranger in a tongue that doesn’t always fit quite right in my mouth. I’ve learned my attempts to connect aren’t a burden.
Generally, I’ve proven to myself that I’m capable of more than I had previously thought. The weekend before last, we visited the Paru Paru community and went hiking high up in the Andes. After lunch, we stopped for a rest, but I decided to climb a big rock a little ways off to get a better view of the awe-inspiring landscape surrounding us. As the group turned into an army of ants below me, my fingers started to tingle with the trepidation of newness. Nevertheless, I kept climbing. Ultimately, as I stood above my web of lovely Civi Semis, a large herd of llamas, and the lush rift in the Andes, I felt a rapturous sense of gratitude, terror, and pride all sloshed together. How lucky am I to have a strong set of lungs and beautiful mountains to climb?
In a way, everything has changed. In my time away from Laurel, I’ve learned to see, feel, and think differently than before. The funny thing is the longer I’ve been here, the more my soul starts to look like hers. Thousands of miles away from her, I’ve learned to be bold, courageous, and breezy, just like she is. September was beautiful and transformational, October and November will surely be more of the same, and in December, I get to show her all of it.
Originally posted here.