Here I am in the last little bit of my week home alone, as Fletch should be back within the hour. Do I look sad? He went to the states for a friends wedding, and for many reasons I felt best that I not accompany him. One of those reasons was that we didn’t have to worry about people thinking we were leaving them forever without telling them–they really worry about that a lot here. We took advantage of my staying here to not tell anyone but our host family where Fletch was going. Everyone else just thought he was taking our friend Devin to the airport when the two of them took off together on Monday morning. I must say, it was liberating at first. We hardly spend any time apart here, which we’ve learned to deal with pretty well by now, but having a space suddenly all to myself felt great!

And then I realized how strange an idea that is to everyone here. They must have asked, “Emily, are you sad? Jaime isn’t here anymore; you’re all alone…” with a pity trail off, twenty times or more in the first two days. It didn’t help that, the night before the guys left, I started getting a head cold that is STILL hanging on, and it made my eyes water constantly. So while I was mentally ending their pity trail offs, “You’re all ALONE! YEAH!” I apparently looked on the verge of tears for the first few days he was away. Perhaps that’s an appropriate reaction for a Guatemalan wife that worked to my advantage? I joked with Reina and her mom that now I was free to find another boyfriend. Lina laughed, “You can date a Guatemalan now!” But then she’d say again, “Poor you. You’re all alone. How are you going to sleep by yourself?” I told them I thought I could handle it. I sleep literally 10 feet from Reina; there just happens to be an outdoor walkway between us. “Well, still, it’s scary to sleep alone. You can come sleep in the house with us if you want to. Just come right into the house with us.” That was very considerate of them, but I couldn’t really sleep well in my own bed due to not breathing well, so the idea of sleeping in someone else’s bed held little interest to me. “Don’t be sad, just come right on in and sleep with us if you need to.” Thank you, thank you, thank you…

So then I was washing all the dirty clothes and dishes the guys left behind, and it’s pretty normal for the chickay, the grandma, to talk to me while I stand working at the pila. Our conversations are usually about the weather and the chickay’s current state of health. It was warm, she was feeling good sitting in the sun, and then. “Pobre usted, Jaime ya no esta. Estas solita!” That translates to…can you guess it? Poor you, Jaime isn’t here anymore. You’re all alone! Then she too asked me, “How are you going to sleep all alone?” I told her I used to do it all the time when he traveled for work in the states. “Oh, I had to sleep alone when my husband drank. He’d drink and fall asleep somewhere and I slept alone then.” She comiserated as though this sleeping alone took a certain amount emotional strength, but it could be done if one set her mind to it. “Do you miss him?” she asked me. “I still miss my husband a lot.” I told her I did miss him, but he wasn’t leaving me forever. I was kind of joking when I said that and thought the tone conveyed it, but she seemed to relax and be generally relieved, “Oh, he’s not leaving you. That’s good. I miss my husband so much. He died eight years ago and I still cry for him. I cry con ganas, sometimes I scream like a drunkard. I miss him so much. Poor you. You’re all alone….but I slept alone when my husband drank, when he was sucking on the bottle.” That last bit in a tone as if to say, “I did it, so you can do it, too.”

Seriously? Part of me had to try very hard not to laugh out LOUD about that crying and screaming like a drunkard just because the chickay is such a petite little lady with a high pitched voice and two teeth, in such gentle spirits all the time; it seemed darkly comic. But on the other hand, SERIOUSLY? It was frustrating to receive so much pity. Mentally I was reverting to that charming habit of yelling so people will understand, “I AM JUST FINE ON MY OWN! REALLY!” But it would have done no good to voice this at any volume. Thinking about it for a second I realized, no one here is ever alone. You are born into a crowded, multi-generational home, are raised right along with multiple siblings cousins, uncles and aunts your same age, and you get married and start having your own children between 15 and 18 years of age. I myself was born into quite the full house, and didn’t really understand the idea of personal time or what to do with myself while on my own until I was in my twenties. I had to move to Barcelona and learn how to be alone before I could decide I liked it, so it wasn’t that unreasonable. Then i joined Peace Corps and sacrificed both personal time and the ability to attend family and friend events with any facility.

Mostly I was not sad about being on my own. The kids still came to see me all the time, except 5 year old Alberto, who maybe just likes Fletch more. 🙂 And  the family invited me over to eat with them probably 5 times. And Thursday through Saturday I went to spend time in the cities with some girl friends, which was a great. It wasn’t until about Sunday that I was just sad about not being in the US, too. It brought up a constant conflict in me. Why do I always choose to go so far away from the majority of people I care the most about? It’s almost a little sick. On one hand I feel like these things I go away to do are always calling for me when I’m not out there doing them, but once I get out and start doing them I feel terribly left out of things everyone else is doing back home. And that, too, is a problem many people here can’t relate to. The nice thing about not feeling lonely because you’re always with your friends and family, is that you probably never feel left out either. So maybe I should halt my very own pity party (perhaps somewhat induced by the pity heaped upon at the beginning of the week) and view this being left out as a privilege of my modern existence. In that respect It’s similar to the joy of alone time.  

But seriously, guys, I hope you know that I miss you all quite a bit and often. I once had this teacher who is a music aficionado. He is amazing with trivia and his cd collection is enormous and he’d lend us cd’s of all types just to expose to more music. While conversing once he said, “Sometimes I think about all the good music there is the world, and I feel so sad that I’ll die before I hear it all.” And at the time I thought, “Huh, I feel that way about people.” So maybe what I’m doing with all this running around is, while recognizing I can’t meet all the hidden gems of great people in the world before I die, I’m giving it a fair go, for what it’s worth.