Hermanita

It's strange how good news can make you feel sad. Maybe it's because the things that just suck on a normal day seem that much more devastating in juxtaposition. Or because the news confirms that life will go on gloriously without you, even though your heart will be in this place long after you've physically gone.

So here's the good news: Veronica is pregnant again! (Update: Potential baby names include Ema, Antonia, Margarita and Sara) The family told me over dinner on Monday night, and although I'd suspected she might be because of brief comments made during earlier conversations, it's much different when the news is directed at you. And I was a little speechless. But I managed a few "Felicidades" for lack of a translation for "You guys must be so excited!" before I excused myself from the table and collapsed onto the floor of my room and cried.

It seems like I write a lot about crying here. I don't think I cry more than most people, but it happens at such significant moments that I feel like I have to document them. Plus, I barely watch TV here, so it's not like I can expend this crying energy during touching commercials or episodes of Sex and the City. This particular session I think could be aptly compared to the kind of crying you'd do if you were single and reaching an advanced age, and your pretty, well-adjusted friend announced that she was getting married. Of course you'd want to be happy for her, and you tell her of course you'll be her maid of honor, and all the while you're tearing up a little, at first from excitement, but then you realize that excitement is tainted with jealously, and you end up making some excuse to leave immediately before she sees you've become completely panicked.

Well that would be an extreme example.

Also I was listening to Owl City, and I don't even need to explain how crooning pre-teen electronic pop can just cut right through you . Anway, there I am on the floor, my face against the wood, and I could pretty much borrow the passage from Romance Crushed (not my title, btw!) pertaining to animal noises and uncontrollable sobs, except instead of "beautiful, simple thoughts" I was making just one desperate plea over and over: No. It was running through my head, and sometimes slipped out of my mouth in that sad whispered choking tone that's all you can muster when you're upset. And the image in my head was of me, in an identical position and equally broken down, but at the airport, heading home, and leaving this country behind where I feel like I've finally learned to inhabit my body.

But why am I talking about this, really? And why am I actually proud to be sharing this with my online audience? It's because (and excuse my self-righteousness here) change, especially personal change, is really painful, and every time I break down I feel like I'm making space for a slightly broader worldview. Even if it's just accepting that in six months, the trio of wonderful people I've learned to call family will welcome a fourth (But I'm the fourth, insists the finally actualized big sister inside me), at which point a new exchange student will be living in my room. Maybe she'll be wondering, as I did, why a family with such young children would want to host an exchange student, and become frustrated after being woken night after night by the baby's crying. Or maybe she'll be more patient than I was.

It's not the end. But it's exam time and classes are finishing up, and in a few more weeks I'll have only one class remaing: my sociology class at UBA that finally resumed two weeks ago, which has been extended until December 16 and is cutting very unpleasantly into my vacation time. I'm planning for one last adventure though, and all the while my excitement is fused with my dread of saying goodbye, but I remind myself that first I have to make it through tomorrow, which promises to be just as exhausting as today, and more and more it keeps occuring to me, that time is not on my side.