Life at Latitude 3

I made this big decision in my life, and at first, it just felt so freaking good to make a decision and move on in my life. And those of you who know me well know that when I’m ready to move on, I start moving.

So I started moving. Pato and I broke up, and discovered that we´re better for each other as friends than we ever were as dating partners. And I finally found myself once again living with people that I enjoyed living with. And a whole SLEW of new teachers came into town, and all of a sudden, life was really fun again. For several months, life had just felt heavy, and then it was light, and airy, and healthy again. And then I started thinking – what am I doing?!?! Why do I want to leave all this? And then I started really second-guessing my decision to leave.

I NEVER second-guess decisions. It´s not in my nature. I look very carefully at all angles of a decision, consider all the factors that needs to be considered, make a very sound and sober decision, trust my decision and the process that went into it, and never look back. So just the fact that I was reconsidering in of itself freaked me out. Why is it SO damn hard for me to leave Ecuador? Scores of people have done it before me.

Then the weirdest thing happened. I went to the beach this wknd with The Family. The Family is the new group of CEDEI preschool teachers. There are 6 of them, and they do EVERYTHING together, including living together. My roommate Meghan and I call them the Family, bec. as with any group of people who spend that much time together, there is bound to be drama, lots of love, secrets, history, jealousies, etc. And somehow Meghan and I, two of the most independent people I know, got adopted into this Family. We don´t spend as much time with the Family as they all spend w. each other, but they are a fun group, and it was a memorable wknd. But riding back on the bus back from the beach, it just hit me – I´m ready to move on. It was a really nice wknd, but the kind of experience that told me that even now, I am taking full advantage of my time and life in Ecuador, and that soon, I´ll be leaving Ecuador with more good memories than I could ever count. But I know too that if I stay, eventually the fun that I am having, as fun does, will fade. These guys, as great as they are, like everyone else – at some point will leave. The changes in season here as so much more subtle than back in the states, that it´s harder to notice change. But everything, and everyone changes, and it´s time for me to change. I still know without question that there will many hard days back in the states, where I will miss Ecuador more than I´ll be able to say. But I believe in leaving places, and people, on good notes, and I know that that is what I will be doing.