Nostalgia

I was working today at the coffee shop and thinking about how bored I am with the job. It was a slow day, so I had time to be dissatisfied. My mind began drifting to flashes of the streets of Antigua Guatemala. The cobblestone streets, the spanish colonial architecture. Glimpses of memories in the rain, in the sun, in the cool of evening and in the moonlit night time.

Antigua had a special place in my heart before I went back to Guatemala. On my first trip I found adventure and beauty there, and when I returned I found it again. It became the escape destination. The place you went to when you just had to get away from Guate, when you needed a break, some comfort or safe adventure.

Perhaps that is why I was thinking about it.
As I closed up shop, my mind continued to replay memories, but it wasn't real events, just pictures and the way a place felt.

Its been a little over three months since I left Latin America and I miss it.
I miss hearing the Spanish language, and find myself listening eagerly when I hear conversations now. I miss the unfamiliar, the new sights and experiences. The constant feeling that you are either learning something new about the world, or about yourself, and the evidence surrounds you.  I miss the people I met, the people I lived and worked with in Guatemala, but also the hundreds of people I met while traveling.  I miss the weather and the idea that it wont become dismal and gray and wintery.

There is a sense of loss now. Not just of places I've left behind and probably will never visit again, but also of who I was in those places. Of who I was, because I was adventuring through them.

Its too soon to say I am ready to leave again, but I am definitely aware that many of the reasons I left haven't changed too much, and that I may not find the parts of me, or the things I am looking for in life, here...