Some pictures are worth a 1,000 words

Before writing tonight, I looked through my pictures from Costa Rica and I was amazed by how much younger I looked in those photos.  Only three and a half years have past since I studied abroad there for five weeks and my appearance is not one to change drastically.  Seriously, I have a photo of me when I was three years old and I still basically look the same only older so it's unusual when I can look back on myself and see a difference.  What's strange about the Costa Rica pictures is that I can't pinpoint exactly what makes me look so much younger.

Granted, I've gained a bit of weight since those shots were taken but that's not it.  There's something in my face or my eyes that appears younger; I can't put my finger on it.  Have I really just matured that much these past three years?  I think there's a part of me that seems happier... unburdened.  Unburdened is I think the word that best describes the me within those photos.  When I left for Costa Rica I was three courses away from graduating college and my most difficult classes and student teaching were behind me; I was there to wrap things up.  Newly single, almost graduated, empowered, and free in a foreign country I had the whole world ahead of me.  I was doing something that people only dreamed of doing; I was living my life.

I know I'm making it sound like I'm completely unhappy now and I'm not, but it was different then.  I felt empowered by following through with the things I said I was going to do. I had always said I was going to study abroad and I was actually doing it.  Passing my student teaching was a huge accomplishment especially after the fiasco of my first experience where I was told that I would never make a good teacher and should basically give up because I was a hopeless case and an embarrassment to my school. Not only had I proven to myself, along with anyone else who doubted me, that I was in fact quite capable of teaching but I was beginning to understand that many of the events that caused the first experience to fail were only partially my fault.  It was more of a "in the wrong place at the wrong time" situation than anything else and it didn't have anything to do with my teaching abilities.  My successes in the second experience were still fresh in my head and I felt confident that I could handle teaching my own class if given the opportunity.

Because I went to Costa Rica not knowing anyone, I felt like I was going there just for me.  It's a hard thing to explain but I think if I had gone with someone else, the experience wouldn't have been so invigorating.  For the first time, I felt like I was living my life on my own terms.  If I wanted to go somewhere or do something, I didn't have to ask anyone else or worry that I was forcing them to do it as well.  I went where I pleased and when I pleased.  I had school daily during the week but the weeknights and weekends were mine to explore.  I had never lived like that before and I took chances.  In the short time I was there I made new friends, hiked volcanoes, bought and drank alcohol at a jacuzzi bar, swam next to a waterfall, snorkeled in both the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean, saw lots of wildlife in their natural habitat, road horseback next to the sea, ziplined through the rainforest, whitewater rafted down a river, and bungee jumped off a bridge.

The whole place was new and exciting.  I felt like I was constantly discovering and learning.  When I first arrived, I knew almost zero Spanish and by the time I left I had figured out how to get around the country by myself.  I have to add, that not everything I did was new and different though.  When you're there for five weeks, you don't have the crazy "go, go, go... we don't want to miss out on anything" kind of feeling that you have when you are only visiting a place for a short time.  Every morning and every evening of the week I sat down with my Tica family and had a home cooked meal,  I studied for my classes, read books, watched movies-- things I did at home.   I still when shopping at the malls, bought tickets to see multiple movies, and hung out with friends.  I finished reading the last Harry Potter book and saw the fifth movie while I was there.   It was the perfect combination of comfortable activities from home and new, exciting, vacation-like activities of a foreign country.

While I was there, I was 22 and ready to take on the world.  I couldn't wait to begin teaching and a career, become financially independent, and meet the man I would one day marry.  Three and a half years later and the world seems very different.  Rather than being in my third year of teaching, I still haven't had my own classroom.  By the time I achieved the degree and could actually apply for teaching jobs some of that confidence was shaken.  Those successful moments seemed so much further away and I found myself afraid to really go for it.  Instead, I've given myself two years of experience working in a customer service call center environment that pays too little for me to have that financial independence I sought.  Worst of all, I'm no longer sure I even want to be a teach any more.  I never thought about what I would do if I didn't become a teacher.  That wasn't supposed to happen.  On the relationship end though, I've been much more successful.  I am extremely lucky and I have found myself a smart, wonderful, supportive man that will be my husband in just under ten months.  I couldn't be happier in this particular area of my life.

Most of all, I was unburdened emotionally at that time.  Although I had already been through the traumatic experiences at that point I wasn't actually dealing with them.  The emotions, the fears, the anxieties that those events from my past were safely buried and I was still under the delusion that I had "gotten over it."   Last February came as a huge shock when it turned out that I hadn't faced any of it, couldn't keep everything buried anymore,  and that it was going to be a long road to full recovery.   Coming to terms with and learning how to integrate it all is only just beginning and at times, I feel like I'm never going to get there.  I know that someday I will and I've already begun.  Setbacks are to be expected but progress is being made; albeit slowly.

So I suppose, all of those thing contribute to my looking so different.  I was in a very different place in my life.  Not a better place, no.  Just at a different stage.  I still do have the world at my fingertips, there's just more to figure out.  I need to gain the confidence, figure out what I might enjoy, and learn how to get out of my way.  But hey, I'm only 26--I've got time.