fin.

Okay. So. Writing this from my home computer…how life changes. I could sit here and come up with some white lie or some excuse or whatever to explain how I found myself here…but I feel like that is pointless and I’ve already been honest with you in everything else, so here goes!

Rule 2.2 in the volunteer Manuel of fun is not to have any sort of more-than-friends-relationship with any of the boys there. Consequence for breaking rules 2.2-2.11? “Immediate expulsion.”

Last Wednesday night, I and yes, one of the boys there, kissed, and somehow the Sitas of our two houses found out, and we were both scolded. I thought that that would be it, until Friday when I guess it somehow made its way to the ears of head honchos Nacho and Paco. The weekend was a complete mess for me. On Friday I made desperate phone calls to friends mad and so, so scared that I would be sent home. On Saturday, when I woke up feeling most depressed, I made two “I feel like I don’t belong and I can’t stay here anymore” phone calls. After those and some dearly appreciated messages online, by Sunday I had decided once again that I could manage to stick it all out. Monday was going significantly better, and although I broke out in sweat and almost started hyperventilating every time I saw an adult, I thought I had survived.
Even ate a tamale with my lunch of rice and potato cakes-which, by the way, I had made since I worked in the kitchen on Monday and adored it.
But come group work time-so about 3:45ish, Nacho took me into his office and after a convo in which I understood…like 75% of (and missed another 50% because I seriously had assumed that if I had made it to 3 I had made it till august without having to be sent home) we all discussed how I knew the rule and I understood why it was there and Nacho explained the effect that it would have if all the boys, like for example the boys in my house, found out about it and couldn’t understand why it happened. Paco discussed how much I had at home, all my communities and family and Sheri, and how this guy had literally nothing in comparison…and the conversation ended with them asking what the situation was with my plane ticket home. I said…that I could go to Atlixco that day and find a new ticket home. And that was that. Walked the hour there, bought a ticket for Tuesday at 2pm, and I got home last night around 11.
And now…to explain where I am with this and how I feel and…wow.

I never fell in love with…well, I don’t want to say Mexico, because I (thankfully) do still freakin’ love that country and the culture and the people and Puebla truly is geographically gorgeous. I did not fall in love with (OR AT!) Ipoderac. I had yet to truly find a place there that was more that a babysitter and Sita’s bi*ch, doing laundry or staying inside waiting for David to finish washing dishes while all of the other kiddos went out to play futbol. I was literally all alone as far as having someone to talk to and run everything by…let me state that in the end, Val Val was absolutely a great help and explained so, so many things to me, but she had almost a year there under her belt and got everything and I did not feel like I could go and ask, in Spanish, how to really dig my feet into things.

I had a crush on this guy-who was one of the few who talked and listened to me-ironically-more than just to call me his amor or to shamelessly hit on me whenever we crossed on the sidewalk. And we ended up kissing, and yep I knew it was against the rules and I completely and entirely understood the risk. But, as I wrote to a friend, and am now writing here, I would rather have experienced this kind of crazy life in which yep, I did screw up but thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process, than have had some sort of connection with someone-when I had barely anything with anyone else-and given him a hearty high-five on my way out in August. I went to make connections, and obviously this connections just went a tad bit too far. Whoops. And that is all I can say.

I do not know if you want to me be writing this in tears. I ruined my life and this was such a once in a lifetime opportunity and I could have been an entirely different person in August and wow, Laura, you really “effed this one up”. Maybe. But tell me what that attitude is going to do for me now.

I am extremely embarrassed and feel foolish that my family and other adults who I trust and love and hold in great respect get to know about who I am kissing in foreign countries because the result was me returning to the states. But then again, the point is that I love and trust and respect those people for a reason, and if they can’t understand me making a silly mistake, and fully accepting the consequences and the punishment for it, well, I am moving on, then. Specifically, I am moving back to Omaha within a week, where I know for a fact I will be (hopefully mostly) surrounded by my best friends who know me and know that everything probably really does happen for a reason and that if I am okay with everything, then they are too. I am looking forward to living the summer that I had postponed until next year; living in an apartment with my best friend, relaxing, working 17 jobs so that I do not go into debt after this Mexico phone bill…

To everyone who has supported me throughout this entire process, I apologize. I am sorry. I feel like there are those of you who I let down. You had such high hopes for me-hopes of dreams that I could have achieved-and I didn’t. I did not permanently impact a 10 year olds life. I did not leave my house crying because I had made bonds that were going to last me a lifetime. This was so very far away from a missionary, unselfish trip, and if that is what you had in mind for me in order for me to become a better person and discover who I was and God and who knows what else, I am sorry.

Instead I learned how much I need personal connections in my life. I need to laugh and dance (absolutely not enough dancing down there) and play. And if there is a way for those to be integrated with learning and babysitting and loads of laundry, then please tell me where I can find that. But for me, this time, I did not find these things at Ipoderac. I thought I could give it all up, and sacrifice friendships and talking about how I felt about things and I thought I could survive those cold showers every other day for three months.

But I couldn’t, and it is for these reasons that I did not strut into Nacho and Paco’s little office and get on the floor and beg. It is for these reasons that I completed my Sound of Music destiny and left without saying goodbye (okay-actually I left without saying goodbye in person. I left them all little notes. There was literally not a good time when we all had a spare 10 min for hugs and kisses between when I bought my ticket and when I called my taxi.) I had an amazing almost 4 entire weeks of my life, and I DID learn a lot. About everything. But when I left, I had not fallen in love with Ipoderac. I apologize for that and I apologize for perhaps, giving up, you might call it, and accepting my plane ride home as just another 5 minutes in my summer telenovela life.

And also, it does need to be said that I see things as EXTREMELY black and white here. I broke a rule, I knew the STATED consequence, and I accepted the punishment. Nothing that occurred was the fault of this organization. IPO is a good place, filled with good people, and while I might change a few things about the way I was accepted and treated, it is not my organization, and I barely know anything about how psychologically lost these kiddos might be after their lives on the streets. I am positive that their ways of life, rules, regulations, time tables, houses, etc are run the way they are for a reason. And it just so happened that, this summer, I was not compatible with these things and I was unable to bend into compatibility and I broke the rules and now…now I am home.

So. I don’t know how hard these many trains of thought were to follow. I hope you managed, and I am more than willing to discuss with anyone anything that happened in my life in the last 4 weeks. I am not willing, however, to spiral into a dark circle of depression where I take the stance of ‘I am now living a ruined life’ because I am not and I am so, so excited to go to Omaha. After everything, I HAVE to believe that this all happened for a reason. I went to Mexico and I jumped into it all, and if this is the end result of this adventure, then so be it.

Thank you, as always, for reading, and I would like to also thank you for understanding, or hopefully trying to understand, how and why I am okay.

It was a big deal for a lot of the older boys that I was always smiling-and even as I arrived back to my house after buying my return ticket home-one of the boys who had watched the house one weekend and who was one of the better babysitters in my opinion, once again pointed it out and asked why I was smiling. “Porque no?” I questioned. “No tengo un razon por no tengo un sonrie.” (Failed Spanish sentence, but translated to ‘I don’t have a reason not to smile’.) And throughout the entire plane ride home…still smiling…because I went to Mexico and I lived lots and I kissed a guy and now I am home.

Todo estare bien.

El fin.