When It Finally Becomes Home.

It’s a funny thing, the definition of home:

Home

[hohm]  noun, adjective, adverb, verb, homed, hom·ing.

noun

1.    a house, apartment, or other shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household.

2.      An environment offering security and happiness.

3.      A valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin.

Four weeks ago:

I find myself on the side of the road, alone, and miserably lost. My eyes are leaking, hazy in the fresh spring sunlight and I complain, out loud, that I wished I had sunglasses. Or a map, for God’s sake. I realize how crazy I look, talking to myself, mumbling curse words to the cracked sidewalk and massive buildings of Buenos Aires. I continue talking, convincing myself it’s the only way I will refrain from actually going crazy. I start to hum some Bob Dylan “Blowin’ in the wind” and consciously decide to stop mentally bitching and enjoy the walk, into oblivion and into a direction that I have no idea whether is toward home or not.

I just spent my last 15 pesos on a museum full of modern art, full of color, scribbling names of brilliant artists into my journal and jotting down my favorite pieces. A taxi or a coffee at this point is off limits without money, so I continue walking.

“I want to go alone,” I had told my roommate earlier in the day, freeing her from following me through the museum, waiting impatiently for me to find myself. “I need to get out by myself and go spend some time with some art.” Which, in reality, translated to: I feel lonely today, and I’m looking for something—anything to remind me of my Mama’s laugh, my baby cousin’s chubby hands, or the smell of my little blue truck. Mountains. My bed. Home.

This was the first time I really allowed myself to feel homesick. Although hesitant, I finally felt that knot in my stomach that many of my friends had explained to me before. You’re fine, Bryanna. You’re being dramatic. You’re in the coolest city in the world and you’re in a museum full of brilliance and magic. Isn’t this what you wanted? This is what you wanted, this is exactly what you wanted.

And so I walked, humming and talking to myself, muttering things unintelligible, letting myself go a little crazy. For the first time since arriving in beautiful Buenos Aires, I cried. Tears of sadness and tears of loneliness; the undeniable tears that come with change, that sting our face and remind us that we’re human. The tears that reminded me that, no, I am not untouchable.

Two weeks ago

I lie down on the flat ground, the salted clay beneath me molds to my body and I breathe out, loudly. There are miles of flat ground on all sides of me and I see a silhouette of someone else in the far distance. I stare up at the first stars I’ve seen in almost two months, and remember what our guide told us two days before. 

“Try to be where you are.”

So I lay there, and decide this is a prime time for soul searching. For finding myself. 

But for whatever reason, the only place I can be is with my new group of inspiring friends back at the campfire, belly laughing at inappropriate “I’ve-never-ever” jokes and speaking about our passions. The campfire where we all sat, dirty from the weekend in the mountains and in our smoky sweatpants, getting to know new people, the people I’ve “known” for almost two months, but only scratching the surface of their worlds tonight. The campfire where no one was bragging or complaining, just sharing stories and s’mores, and a whole lotta love.

While I lay there on top of the salty earth, in a silent galaxy of being alone, I feel so surrounded.  I close my eyes, a smile across my face at the thought of finally feeling like I belong.

This weekend

I sit on the curb at 3 am two blocks from my apartment, waiting for Alexis to catch the bus home. This has become a ritual of ours, so much so that we have a new friend across the street who works at the kiosco with whom we chat with in bad Spanish and has caught Alexis, more than once, dancing to await the arrival of the infamous 64.

We both sit there telling eachother yet another story of ours, and discussing the night we just had. It was just a casual Saturday night filled with spicy Mexican food (IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND IN BUENOS AIRES), new girlfriends, a spontaneous costume party, and too many laughs in between.

Her feisty, booming voice rings familiar in my ear. “I am just thinkin’ ‘bout that dulce de leche Imma have right when I get home. It’s on my list of things to eat.”

We laugh.

Our conversation and laughing pains tonight remind me of the night before, when four of us sat in the top of Starbucks, avoiding the crazy nightlife of Buenos Aires (we were exhausted from the 6 hours of dancing the night before) just talking. We quickly progressed (as close friends always seem to) into the deepest parts of ourselves, even bringing tears to the surface and latching together, closer as friends.

We spoke of family, of regret, of home. We skipped the clubs that night and decided to just hang out in a couple of unpopular night hubs—Starbucks and La continental empanadas.  And soon after, we found ourselves full of empanadas, singing and dancing in the street to music in Spanish, careless of the looks we were getting from our bystanders. We were falling deeper in love with the city, and we didn’t even know it.

These are the moments, I thought, that I'll never be able to truly capture with words.  

And later that night, in bed, I found myself crying for the second time in Buenos Aires.

Not because I missed home, but because I’d found it.