(Originally Draft March 28th, 2022)
In reflecting on my time over the last three months spending living and breathing the beauty and magic that is Costa Rica, it would behoove me not to share some of what I feel I've taken away from this experience. And, in listology fashion, I've decided to share 13 reasons my life will never be the same, and the ways in which I'm taking every single second with me into this next chapter.
In many ways, this is an ode to all of the lovely people who have sprinkled my days and nights - strangers, friends, and adopted family alike. I would be remiss not to mention that you are, in many ways, the reason why I do what I do, what motivates me to get out of bed in the morning, and what pushes me to continue to seek grand adventures in life.
Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. I know that when the time comes to express my appreciation for your hospitality and camaraderie, there will be no shortage of love and thoughtfulness coming from my end. And you can damn bet that I'll be returning to give you a big hug and smooch on the cheek. A big saludos from the time that we may have spent apart, and a big cheers to the continued memories we will forge together.
1. Salsa, bachata, and merengue.
Dancing lights me up in ways that other creative outlets just can't. My first exposure to 'formal' dancing started in high school, when I learned how to dance the tango with the Lawrence Tango Group that met in the top floor of Signs of Life, a coffee shop downtown. Latin dance is a whole other ball game. And I can't go back, now that I've been exposed to it properly. A couple of months of classes and I'm now asking folks in Pelican Rapids if they'd like to teach with me so that I can continue to fill my evenings with movement, laughter, and joy!
2. Spontaneity.
Alonso, you embody spontaneity like no other person I've known. I am grateful for your heart and your energy and the way you get me up and moving when I thought that I had no more energy left in me. You've set the standard for doing things on a whim, without plans, and I know that this will stay with me while I'm in Minnesota.
3. Situational Humor.
This is something unique to cultures of Spanish speakers. I first learned this while working in housekeeping, but I find it's consistent in other areas as well. I find that in Latin cultures, the ability to create situational humor is inevitable. A new goal for myself is to always find ways for people around me to laugh and smile.
4. Beaches.
The movement of water is rhythmic, soothing, and energizing all at the same time. Nothing beats the ocean, and the way that watching it every single day, noticing the changes in the tides, the quality of the water, the levels of wind...affects one's mood and ability to process life. Watching the ocean for me is like watching a fire. There's organized chaos that mesmerizes your eyes, slows your heartbeat, and makes you remember the wonder of nature. Spending three months watching the ocean with curiosity made it clear that I must always live near water.
5. Sunsets.
Similar to watching the ocean, sunsets have a magical energy about them. Always different depending on the cloud coverage, the time of year, and more. I'm pretty sure my family is sick of me sending sunset photos to them, so I had to stop about half-way through my trip. :D But my daily walk to the beach to watch the sunset helped me foster a habit of walking that I continue to this day. Mental processing time that I find incredibly valuable when I feel like I'm consuming information all the time.
6. Family. Adopted and by blood.
I am a firm believer that some of the best family isn't biological. For readers who know me, you're already familiar with the fondness with which I write about my days working at Meadowlark Estates. Traveling and making family with strangers is quite honestly one of the best things out there, because you don't bond over a shared homeland or culture, but a shared humanity - of having the same struggles of health, employment, finances. The family I feel I have gained in Costa Rica motivates me every day. I often think of channeling a good friend's energy when dancing at Zumba, thinking of how he would be if we were at his home singing karaoke with the family. And I think of the benefits of having family close - being able to pop in unexpectedly, invite for dinner without making plans prior, and more.
7. Patacones & Plaintains.
That actually sounds like an awesome band name. I might get a t-shirt made with that.
Plantains: The vegetable that has made its way into my very international diet. Yes, there will always be exceptions to eating local, and plantains is one of them. Patacones (fried, unripe plantains) with ceviche, refried beans...you name it. I'm all over it. And still working on perfecting my fried ripe plantains to make just the right casado.
8. Ooooeee playo!
This one is for you, Pias, and your weird exclamations. It's is a phrase that I repeated when we were out to dinner one time, which was exclaimed each time we passed over a speed bump without slowing down, or the roads got so curvy, and we went so fast around them that we all feared sliding off the edge. For those of you who may not be familiar with Costa Rican slang, 'playo' means 'gay', but can be used in a friendly way between guys, kinda like 'bro'. This point is really just to emphasize the importance of showing up with authenticity, and surrounding yourself with people that are true to themselves. I am so grateful to Ani, Pias, and Gustavo for showing up in their full greatness, and giving me permission to do the same.
9. Karaoke
Should I really say anything else?
10. Mountain biking & extreme hiking
One of the toughest things that I've ever done was attend a 50-ish mile mountain bike ride. For the first time that I was on the bike. I'll admit I let my ego get the best of me when they told me it was going to be hard. And I let my stubbornness carry me through the end when I really should have turned around at the beginning. Flipping over the front of the bike, breaking down crying multiple times while on the trip...I came home and was shaken, having feared for my life and the safety of the other bikers around me when I couldn't control the breaks or the terrain came up so fast that there was no time to process what you were passing by or through. One wrong turn and I would have fallen down the hillside.
Mountain biking is a great way to dig into the deepest depths of your fears and find out what you're really made of. It's a complete mind game. And I think that what I found in myself the day that we went biking, and other times when we were hiking, is that focusing on your breath and on your thoughts can save you - from passing out, falling over, and making mistakes. This is something that I continue to focus on when I am in tough situations - recognizing that I am in control of my thoughts - to get through them. I feel in many ways that this experience was just preparation for hard things to come. Little did I know that those hard things would be coming so soon (more in this in a future post).
12. Tropical birds.
I loved waking up to the sound of tropical birds every morning. Sometimes that would be your wakeup call at 6:00 a.m. Sometimes it would be the indication of the end of my meditation. I don't know enough to be able to distinguish one species from another, or to understand what the birds are saying to each other, but I find that the sound of birds represents life. It's something you don't realize in Minnesota's winter until suddenly spring comes and it's no so quiet anymore. I have a newfound appreciation for birds and what they can tell us about what's happening all around us.
13. Love.
I remember before leaving for Costa Rica, my mom pulled an oracle card for me about love, and her immediate 'clause' was to say that it's not always referring to romantic love. I'm pretty sure the theme of self-love has come up in past posts related to my time here in Costa Rica. Last year, I wrote about Alonso's effect on my own levels of self-love, and that has only continued to strengthen. It's what allows me to stick to my morning routines of meditation, journaling, exercise, filling my body with fresh foods, and finding time for rest and recovery after intense physical, mental or emotional exertion.
The way that self-love showed up for me in Costa Rica this time around was often just giving myself permission to close my laptop at 5:00 and not look at it again until the morning. I didn't realize how much time I was spending working, taking classes in the evenings, and doing other things on the computer until suddenly I had someone I could spend the evenings with. It brought me so much more balance to my life...something I am struggling with quite a bit now that I'm back in Minnesota, and I don't have the accountability of a physical human at home. And I am realizing that this standard is something I don't want to give up.
I stumbled upon a journal entry from February 16th, which prompted me to finish drafting this blog post (which I started in March), and that I believe is worth sharing as a conclusion:
"...something about my sadness has to do with the fear of losing the feeling that I'm having right now. But here's the fucking awesome part. That's what 'old Emily' thought. Badass Emily says that this is only the beginning. That there is no going back. This change is permanent. My standards are different. They're higher. I don't settle for low-self worth anymore. The networks, people, places...they've all been upgraded. Now it's time to usher in this majestic new point of view, let go of anything that's not serving me, and accept that this is my path. I must accept and embrace this growth. I must carefully curate my average so that I'm continuously challenged and have positive role models, confidants, and more. I must set boundaries around my time, my energy, and get ready for the wild fuckin ride that I'm about to embark upon.
So, knowing that my life is different and my standards have been changed...and I'm considering very seriously working from Costa Rica on a digital nomad visa or finding a way to live with Alonso elsewhere, the question now becomes, what's my next aligned step? I know that things look like with Mezclada, but what about personally? This new friend that I so explicitly described - what am I going to do to meet this person? How am I going to get out of my comfort zone?"
We often forget that to a large degree we are in control of our futures. That we are not victims to the circumstances around us, and that we can in fact choose how we react to the situations we find ourselves. This journal entry reminded me that I get to define what my next steps are - because if I don't, someone else will define it for me.
What's your next step?
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