It is January 1, 2013 and I could not feel more strange. I’m oddly calm in the light of time, but grossly nervous to leave home when it comes to it. However cliche it may be, I comfort myself with the prospect of an adventure. I mean, a real adventure! I have persuaded myself to view the anxieties I have about leaving something at home, or not being prepared as one might view a protagonist. Though I caution myself as well, not to embody the ‘omniscient’ being in my own life, and to live in the moment more than ever before. I think that will be my new year’s challenge, to stop looking nostalgically behind, or absurdly far ahead that I miss what is happening right before me.
I’m in my bed right now, in Boerne Texas, and I will be in Port of Spain in 24 hours. I cannot wait for the positively electric feeling one gains from discovery. Even more stimulating is the promise of understanding, an understanding of a new world. Some anthropologist might argue that ‘other worlds’ are not possible, and cannot exist on earth, we are all the same, we are all the same everywhere. But what, I ask, is the point? If this is true, what can anyone take pride, delight, or confidence in if this is true? This view in itself could be argued as “American Ethos”, which, I cannot deny, is extremely plausible.
I guess my thesis for this journal…blog…thing….is just that. I hope to discover if indeed we are all the same. I hope not. I desperately hope not.
I positively quake with elation with the thought that I will become someone through this experience, learn from the world, and from being a minority. I hope to become myself more wholly. I hope to learn as much as possible, and meet as many people as possible, and experience life outside of being an American.
Love to Anna, Mom, Dad, and Ted.
Here I go!
My Trinidad and Tobago 