Those I left behind/Los que dejé atrás

This post kind of fits in with the prologue, but it's also relevant to my life here. Today I'm writing about the life I put on hold to come to the Dominican Republic. I'm writing about the people and things I left behind.

I live in San Jose, California. It's the 10th largest city in the United States, larger than San Francisco. SF is a global city--a globalization term that means a city is integral to the world economy. SJ is not a global city. It's integral to American technology and sustainability industries, but nine times out of ten, when I tell someone that I live in San Jose, they've never heard of it. Everyone knows San Francisco. Sometimes a frame of reference is needed.

I left San Jose behind for 15 weeks in the tropics. I spent all the money I have in the world to come here: several thousand dollars to pay for my internship, tuition at UNIBE, and housing. I have a little bit socked away for groceries and incidentals, but that's it.

I left behind my work, my home, my friends, and my boyfriend as well. Fortunately, they all have allowed me to come back when I return in December.

If you've been following the posts before this, you know I work as a blogger and contributing writer for a few websites in the States. I also work at the Santa Clara Swim Club, a well-known and highly respected swim club in the Silicon Valley (the region containing San Jose and other cities, named for the tech firms and development housed in the region). I teach swim lessons for children of all ages (and some adults!) on the weekends, while I attend classes at SJSU during the week.

I love my teaching job. Swimming plus baseball means I get to work outside and wear basically whatever I want. I get to splash around with kiddos and be goofy and silly, yet I work my kids hard and I feel satisfaction from teaching them an important life-saving skill plus giving them something to work for, and something I hope gives them self-confidence.

We operate on a schedule of four sessions a year. I'm missing two whole sessions to be here. I told my boss about my plans to study abroad at the beginning of 2011 and she wants me to return to my teaching duties when I come home. I know how lucky I am to have any job in the crappy American economy, and I feel blessed that I can leave for a while, do my thing, and come back to a job I love.

I don't think my social life is especially rockin' when compared to my college contemporaries. I don't drink until I pass out and I attend marching band parties, which are pretty fun. They're just not keggers or ragers. We drink and play beer pong and just hang out. But I'm cut off from my friends here due to differences in how cell phones work and time zones.

I can't just pick up the phone and call someone. I can't text. Here, I rely on phone cards and putting money on my cell phone. In the States, I have an unlimited plan and I admit I text a hell of a lot. Text and call costs add up; those ten pesos here and there soon eat up the few hundred pesos I put on my phone every week. So I save my phone for calling my mom, my dad, and my brother, who don't have internet access. I call them and our conversations last for a few minutes, mostly me saying I'm safe and fine and no hurricanes have washed me out to sea.

I talk with my friends in the States when I can via the internet. I haven't tried Skype yet. Mostly it's via Facebook chat, as buggy as it is and as annoying as FB's changes have been. You probably have been hit with their asinine friends feed shift. I switched my FB language to Spanish, and the feed went back to normal. Suck it, Facebook.

Okay, so I should have been using the Spanish settings all along. Don't take away my righteous indignation.

It's hard to stay in contact with my friends, though. Most of them are on the West Coast, meaning I'm three hours ahead of them. I stay up until 3am most nights just trying to see if anyone's around to talk to me. I don't always get enough sleep, especially on school nights. So far I've been able to get by as one of the walking dead.

That feeds into natural feelings of loneliness. I live in a city of over three million people and I know like, ten people. I'm still trying to become confident with my Spanish. It's easy to feel alone here when I can't always understand others and I can't always articulate myself, and it's easy to feel alone here when I don't know that many people to communicate with in the first place.

My roommate Indhira has been great for encouraging me to get out of the apartment and socialize with her friends. I'm still reluctant to go out, but I'm feeling less and less awkward about it.

My go-to sources of comfort and safety in the States are my boyfriend and my home. Sam and I moved into our apartment in July, a two-bedroom dump we share with a good friend of ours, Phil. I love it because it's our dump and I feel comfortable and safe there. I need to have my nest.

Sam and I are very close. Aside from being my boyfriend, he's also my best friend. I don't trust anyone in my life as much as I trust him. I had severe issues with leaving him to come here and I'm still not happy about it.

I don't get to talk to him as much as I want to. He has classes and activities and things he has to do. His schedule doesn't match up with mine.

It sucks. I can't put it any other way.

I sat around today and got all weepy and stupid watching The Time Traveler's Wife because I miss Sam so damn much. I hate sleeping in a bed without him. I hate waking up and not seeing him next to me. I hate that I can't see any texts from him. He sent me texts about 20 times a day that just say "I love you."

Yes, vomit. Whatever. I'm a sappy idiot and I don't care.

I didn't leave these parts of my life behind per se. It's more like putting that part of my life on hold, but they keep going. I go on here while thinking about them going on there and wishing I could have parts of my life here.

I love it here in the D.R. I let myself daydream about living here with Sam and working at a good job and having friends and a happy life. But my life is in San Jose now. It's just hard to think of my life going on without me.