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2013: The year I couldn’t bear to write about.

It feels like yesterday that I sat down to write my year-end recap; my classic annual blog post. The one in which I feel inspired to write more, to sit down and recount not only big events of the year that has past, but to also capture the mundane moments experienced throughout the year as well. With the exception of 2013, that is.

The truth is that I will not be getting around to writing about that one. I accomplished a typical amount of things that year – traveled to New York, Puerto Rico, back to Colombia, out to Oregon, and began school for the first time in nearly a decade. My heart was still reeling from a relationship that I did not realize had affected me so much. I had to readjust to living somewhere I never thought I’d live again. I somehow made the decision to start over, from scratch, in a new place that was ironically my hometown. Externally, it looked like I had a fantastic year. Internally, it was the hardest one I’ve had as an adult. Every day was hard on some level. I found myself extremely homesick for Colombia – a place I had only called home for a little more than a year of my life. I couldn’t (and still can’t) explain why I ache for a place I didn’t seem to spend a lot of time in. I was also homesick for Oregon – where my friend base, support network, and my growth into who I am today began. I hesitantly pushed myself to try and make new friends and attend Spanish-speaking events in an effort to create a new world in Colorado. But it sucked.

Living abroad made me feel extremely disconnected from my friends back at home, and I therefore became even more self-reliant that usual. It was a harsh reality to come back to living in the US, only to find that many of my former best friends were still just as distant and removed from my life, even though I was accessible in any way imaginable. They seemed to have learned to live life without me being a part of it, and I guess I couldn’t fault them. It was just a hard reality for me to accept.

My time in Denver that year taught me a lot of patience. I learned in Colombia that I am capable of many things, as I felt pushed to give more of me than I ever had been. Colorado forced me to have patience with my healing self, and as I told myself on many occasions, to give myself some grace.

When you are making new friends, there are a couple of things you just don’t do: You don’t cry to your new-found friends, you don’t reveal your pain and suffering. I’m not sure which is worse: Trying to make friends in that state of being, or trying to make friends when you’re 30. Both presented plenty of obstacles. Aside from that, each month that passed – each holiday, birthday – brought me back to a sweeter time in Colombia. For the first time in my life I felt lonely on a very consistent basis. And I knew there was no other place that I could be, except stuck in that uncomfortable space until I healed, and accepted where I was, and learned from it. That was my 2013, or as much of it as I am willing to share. Other writings lay buried in my computer and I don’t plan to read them, perhaps ever. They should be placed in a time capsule of sadness, only to be opened 20 years from now and laughed at like my high school diary.

As mentioned, there were shining moments and wonderful experiences that were had. Events lead me to deciding to go back to school to finish my BA, something I have pondered but never seriously considered until recently. It was time to incorporate my new-found love of Latin America and Spanish with my old passion for the Deaf community and ASL. In typical Sara fashion, I am decided to follow my own path and create my own BA in Trilingual Interpreting. Forging my own road, where perhaps others will also follow.

Although I am writing this one full year removed from that heart-heavy year known as 2013, I am not inclined to go back and retrace my steps, month by month, as I have done for the last few years. It still brings up a lot, even though I am in a much better place and all healed up now. So instead, I will let the pictures show for themselves what shining points I had. And, just like my year of living in Bogotá, I look back and see how I was able to stay myself, gozar de la vida, and enjoy the bright moments since there were less of them than I would have liked.

New York & Oregon

Colombia 

Puerto Rico

 

Colorado

2012, as best I can remember

I love year-end recaps.

That being said, the end of 2012 was a very sad one for me: I had decided to leave my dear Colombia and a man that I loved because I knew I wasn't being fulfilled by my work, by where I lived, or by the relationship I was in. It was the hardest thing I've done - leaving him. I had no idea how difficult of a year that 2013 would be thanks to that decision to come home. 

I have to mention this fact, because that is precisely why I didn't write a 2012 recap: I simply couldn't. It was too painful to sit and reflect on the year that I had just lived and the life that I left behind. 

I can't lie, its still painful at times. I fell in love with Colombia in a way that I didn't know was possible, and that was the overarching theme for the year. Its a country that frustrated the hell out of me, helped me to learn about who I am, allowed me to calibrate my life to reflect what I truly value. It taught me how to give without thinking twice of what was being asked of me, how to have patience in ways I didn't think were possible. I met some lifelong friends, learned a ton of Spanish and acquired a Colombian accent that I hope to lever lose. I learned of the convenience (and curse) of having delivery options at all hours of the night (especially for booze), how to tolerate vallenato, how to dance to it, party until all hours of the night, and how to sleep through noise and sunlight. 

Here are the highlights from my wonderful and trying year living in my dear Colombia:

January: Kicked off the new year in quaint Villa de Leyva, celebrating in the town square at night, then bike riding around the countryside and visiting the strangest bright blue pools of water.

I also started my new job as a Travel Expert at See Colombia Travel, learning all about the inner workings of the travel and tourism industries. At the same time, I taught English to a few groups and made some great friends with some of my students. It also allowed me to better learn my way around the enormous city of Bogota.

February: Continued working, started going for more runs.

March: Work, work, work.

April: Got out of the city and went to the Caribbean coast to revisit Taganga and Tayrona National Park for Semana Santa (Easter week):

May: I traveled to Peru at the end of April to volunteer interpret for a friend down in the Amazon rainforest. She volunteered with Fauna Forever, and that was an incredible experience. She stayed much longer than me, but I spent 10 days upriver, without electricity and definitely without internet service. It was an incredible journey, and I wish it could have lasted longer. 

On my birthday, I traveled to Cusco to meet my friend Saamanta for the next big journey: Trekking to Macchu Picchu. 

Once arriving back into Bogota, I found out that my Birthday present was entrance to run a 10K - My very first one! It was hard, but very fun. Bogota on a Sunday is my favorite: its quiet for a change. And on this particular morning, once the gate opened you could hear nothing but the sound of feet hitting pavement. No music blaring, horns honking or buses flying past. No one said a word; the footsteps sounded just like rain. I'll never for get that.

Upon finishing the race, I learned that the second half of my present was entrance to the Bogota Half Marathon. That was a whole different ballgame (more on that in July). 

June: My first time rock climbing outdoors in a town called Suesca, located about an hour outside of Bogota. We went with a group from Couchsurfing for the weekend, and it was a blast. The rocks looked like they were growing beards, and the eucalyptus forest was all you could smell all day long. 

July: The half marathon. I wasn't properly trained, so it was a tough day for me. I had to walk a few times, and my hips were very angry with me when all was said and done. I'd love to do another one with better training. I had a bit of a panic attack somewhere around 11km, but recovered and continued on. Early on in the race I saw a man and his son doing Deaf applause (when you wave your hands in the air), so I applauded them back. That boy's face lit up like you wouldn't believe -- and he then became my inspiration to finish that race. I'm still proud of having done that, especially at 8,600 feet in elevation!

August: This is where I hit my low. Bought the ticket home for December, giving myself permission to say that I had tried my hardest to make things work there if things didn't improve by my departure date. We moved into our own apartment.

September: My first investigation trip for the company! I traveled to the department of Nariño and visited the city of Pasto and the surrounding areas. Colombia's tourism rarely brings people to this region, unless they are travelling by land to Ecuador and other countries further south. I found the people to be soft-spoken and genuinely interested in my opinion of their town. There was a pride in being from there that I appreciated, coupled with interesting food and drink (think guinea pig and fermented blackberry "tea"). 

After finishing the "work" trip to Nariño, I bolted across the border and traveled to Ecuador for the weekend. There I visited the Mitad del Mundo site -- the line of the equator. Its hard to imagine standing exactly in the middle of the world!

October: Some friends came along to celebrate Felipe's 30th birthday, and we went bungee jumping off of a bridge. Well....the boys bungee jumped. I chose to be catapulted off of the bridge. I have bungee jumped before, so I thought I'd try something different! 

I also started taking my first Spanish class since arriving in Colombia, exactly one year after moving there. My one regret is not having started studying earlier..... I learned so much that I could immediately put into practice! It was also a Monday-Friday afternoon class, so I got out of the house on a daily basis.

This was Che Plaza:

November: My cousins came to visit! They got to see the real side of Colombian life, thanks to the three of them cramming into our little one-bedroom apartment for a few nights! Then we traveled to Medellin and to Guatape for a few days as well. It was so good to see family so far away from home.

After they left, I had the pleasure of cooking a traditional Thanksgiving meal (with many people's help) for friends that I had made over the year of living in Bogota. There's nothing like sharing a tradition like this with a group of people who have only experienced it through the movies. I think that Thanksgiving will never be the same for me after spending it in Colombia.

December: A blur of goodbyes, tears, sadness, anxiety. Last times seeing friends and last excursions out of the city for a BBQ and a hike among some very strange vegetation.

Writing this summary helps me to put that chapter of my life to a close. I look back on these pictures (and the hundreds that never made their way to Facebook or this blog), and I still have such mixed emotions. With the passing of time, I can see how I still managed to make life the absolute best I could while trying to make things work and adjust to life abroad. I still visited two new countries, a new part of Colombia I hadn't seen, and got out for some adventures. I was able to be me through the messy parts of life, and that is very encouraging. And, as usual, all of this reminiscing strangely makes me feel nostalgic for this frustrating city I once called home. 

Bogota: