Greetings from San Jose, where I’m tucked away in a pension next to the Justice Department, watching the daylight get soft and sitting in the cool air of Costa Rica’s capital. It’s very quiet here, and that’s the way I’ve kept things for the past couple days. You wouldn’t know I’m on a four day/four city run right now, but so I am.
Today—San Jose
Tomorrow—Mexico City (on a 15-hour layover)
Thursday—New York
Friday—Providence, to start a new chapter
It’s a bit exciting and a bit exhausting to think ahead. There will be concerns like finding a job and an apartment and all that. But that doesn’t have me too worried right now. I think I’ve arranged things so I stayed relaxed. I spent two days taking in volcano views up in La Fortuna while rarely leaving my hostel. And today, I don’t plan on going out for much other than dinner. Saving my strength for Mexico City and New York.
Strange, of course, to be nearing the end of the trip, largely because it doesn’t feel like I’ve been going that long. At least mentally. Physically, I’m pretty drained. But the only evidence in my mind that I’ve been on the road for four months is a burning desire to get back to the States and create a home. I think that’s partly because I’m ready to stop moving, and partly because I want to put what I’ve learned over the past few months into practice.
Travel, especially foreign travel, teaches me a great deal about myself. The time in Central America, particularly in Nicaragua, bled away a lot of my worry, a lot of the almost pathological need for order I’ve developed over the last year and change. I don’t think I’m done learning, but, as I’ve suggested in earlier posts, I feel parts of myself coming back into alignment. I’m not trying to be a previous version of myself. I’m just trying to bring that back into who I am so it can teach the new parts not to be so damn nervous all the time.
Tomorrow, I’ll be up at the crack of dawn for my flight to Mexico City. I have a whole day to kill there, so I’ll probably spend a good chunk of today figuring out what I’m going to do. Then, a red-eye flight to New York, and a day in the city with my brother and his bride. I’ll probably write next from there.
It’ll be good to be back Stateside. I’m tired and I miss home. That’s exactly how you want to feel at the end of a trip.