Saturday, 19th o September 1998
Unai, Oroitz, Me, and Iker in the train station leaving The Basque Country |
We left our friends and the Basque Country with heavy heart. I think in the end it was harder on them though, because their place is so tranquil, so unchanging. We swept in with a whoosh, created a world around us, made friends, changed the landscape so to speak and then we were gone. My friend, Iker, has written to me that when he and his girlfriend go by our old place they always lament that they can't stop by to say hi, or have a meal. Their lives are the same, Iker still an electrician, Mari Fran and Oroitz students, and Unai an engineer. The hole stays there in physical form, leaving only our own to be carried around in our hearts.
Mari Fran, Laura, and Arantxa in the train station |
In truth, it's been very difficult and tiring these past few months. I haven't felt like corresponding, writing, talking. I've felt like just leaving everything behind, shuck off all the responsibilities of a new life and just... hell, I would've been happy being homeless for a while. I don't know if any of you have had an exchange experience, going abroad for a year or two and then returning home (or in my case another foreign country), but with all the changes and challenges, treading water, swimming against the current, when you pull yourself up onto the surf of something familiar it's all you can do to lie there and heave. In our case lying there couldn't be an option because the tide was coming in quick and we had to move... but through it all the tiredness didn't go away. I think even as I sit here I find myself fatigued. I've been sleeping long hours, feeling drained during the day, having little will to write or communicate myself in an emotional way. Too many times my emotions have been exploding in anger (sorry Laura), frustration, and empty fretting.
I think that women have different release mechanisms. The most common is crying. We men find it difficult to do sometimes. I have to admit that I usually feel better after a good cry, but perhaps because of our socialization, we tend to lash out on the offensive. Crying is such a simple personal release. It tends to invoke in those around you empathy and a call to action. Anger and frustration tend to just make everyone feel like shit. That's true, but I still find it hard to cope sometimes with emotions that I'm not used to. You've got to have control of your life. You've got to understand it and know your place in it, shape it and make it your own. When you've been away from what you might have called your "regular" life, it's difficult to cope in this new place that you've come to call your "temporary life."
I remember a time when I was in the military doing my basic training which consisted of no sleep, crawling through the mud, being yelled at, carrying forty pounds of gear, being cold wet and basically miserable. Quickly, a time arrives when it's not so bad when a simple truth reveals itself to you that "this is your life." It's really so simple, and a smile comes over your face. Even though you haven't bathed in more than a week you're eating it up and asking for more. In intense circumstances such as military training, you get to meet the challenges in a very visceral and immediate manner. The lesson then becomes, "your life is here." You've got to suck it up or quit and how can you quit your life?
I guess the lessons of trial are the very same whether they are emotional or physical or both. It's just that things in the emotional world are so very much harder to get a handle on. The enemy isn't so toe to toe with you on the emotional battlefield. He's snipes at you from a shadowy grove of trees, sets booby traps that you trip over and over and over.