Repeat.Again.

Up. Down. Left. Right. Forward. Backwards. Forward. Repeat. Again.

It´s hard to summarize the past month with so much confusion, so much that at the same time is so little. Going to Comarapa was like finding a piece of rainbow colors in the middle of a storm, just to realize that nothing had changed in the real, normal world.

It is a challenge to change the routine of every day, it is a challenge to start something new, and it is a challenge to keep going with this new thing. It is a challenge to end something that was such a big part of the routine.

Nevertheless, I have managed to set up a (more or less) concrete plan for the next two months  so that the days don´t go by meaningless. One of the last weekends I took part in a film project with the goal of creating a short film in 48 hours. The project is called the 48 Hour Film Project and is a really fun thing to do. It´s organized all over the world and friends of mine took part, inviting me. I ended up acting, something completely new for me, but a great experience. Apart from the fact that being in front of the camera is different from being behind it, a movie is also a much more complex world than photography. Not only is the movement of the subject - the actor - crucial, the angle, lighting, movement of camera, and the whole surrounding matter as well. An unexpected sound can ruin a whole scene, a bystander crossing the set unknowingly as well,  and it takes many tries and a lot of patience to get a take right. Even though my friends are not professional film makers and the camera men they had found were more experienced in documentaries, adding the fact that we only had 2 days to write, film and edit, our short film of 7 minutes turned out pretty well. I had a lot of fun and made new friends, which is the most important thing of all.

Even though it´s a process that might never finish up in a complete project, I have tried to inspire about 6 teens to think about their future, about their purpose in life, about what they believe and don´t believe. I want them to think about what they want to achieve. But the first step to think about these questions is to sit down and take the time. An it´s not easy to analyze oneself. I have answered the questions and it took me a while to find an answer to some of the questions.

Apart from my personal project, we have been organizing a group of volunteers within Plataforma, mostly with the teens. Through workshops and different activities, we want them to reach out to others, to learn to be responsible, and to understand how to work as a team. Using different games and dynamics, we want them to grow into leaders themselves. Yesterday, we went to the botanical garden to take a break from normality and enjoy the weather. Using the time together, we worked on trust, self esteem, and team spirit. It was so necessary to get new inspiration, to rediscover some activities that I had done a long time ago, and to spend time with my coworkers. We made a video showing the different nationalities of the volunteers in Plataforma and had a great time making mistakes and saying silly things on purpose. Even though dead tired, I had a good time.

It´s been a nice change of pace to go dancing on the weekends, something that I hardly did before. It´s been nice to make plans for every day of the week with someone else. It made me happy to see my friend Lesshy who now moved, but who wanted to spend some time with me before she left. It is nice to know that people care, that all the love that I have tried to give now comes back to me one way or another.

It is the moments that make you laugh, the moments of driving from one end of the city to the other with ten people piled in one car, tired and exhausted form a day of work, with about half of the work to still be done, but at the same time happy because it´s the friendship that matters, it´s working together and being proud of the results. It´s fooling around with the guitar and being told to keep playing because it´s beautiful, and being told that you´re adored even though you´ve only met that person a day. Life is the small things that make a day worth living.

Even though I don´t feel like it right now.

Life is all the people that worry because they can see that I´m sad. Life is dancing a whole night long with a friend who I haven´t seen in more than a year and being happy to share a day together. Life is the surprises of seeing a childhood friend from Germany on the plaza in Bolivia while waiting for someone else.

Life is not knowing what will happen next. Life is being helpless. Life is to feel like being ripped apart inside. And having to hold on to the little moments of happiness that still exist.

Life is that a friend drives by your house to give you a watermelon, life is that a stranger picks up the 10 Bolivianos that fell out of your pocket. And Life is that you give back those moments, by giving a homeless man on the street a red rose, and the little kid on the bus a cookie, a hug to the little girl who feels lonely and takes your hand to feel more secure. ´

Everything comes and goes, no matter how beautiful or special, how terrible or sad. That does not alleviate the pain of the moment, and it does not take away the doubt of having done the right or wrong thing. It doesn´t take away the longing.  It doesn´t make the heart feel more alive, nor more whole, it doesn´t calm the moments of disbelief. But if things have to happen, things have to happen, and time is just time, moments are just moments.

Life is that my Mom tells me it´ll be ok even though it doesn´t feel like it, and ten other people tell me that I´m already fine even though I feel like I´m falling apart. Life is feeling pain just as intensely as love, which just reassures me that it really was love. Life is being told to look forward, but at the same time that he, too, can´t deal with the pain of losing what we had. Life is avoiding to weigh down the options, knowing but not wanting to believe the one that weighs less.

Does it make it any better to take one step forward trying to forget and the next moment take three backwards because it´s just not possible to forget?

Going out with friends helps, going to eat ice cream helps, too, and dancing is the best medicine, but only up to the point in that I don´t start thinking. Until I remember that nothing is the same even though it seems like it. Because he´s not here with me, just like before, but now he´s nowhere in my life. Just in my heart. An I am the one who kicked him out thinking I would be better off without him.  I think adjusting and accepting might be the hardest thing in the world; getting your head and your heart to feel the same way.

It´s good to have distractions.

And still I want to ask whether it would be worth the last three weeks, knowing that the hurt would be twice as big. Can I know? Can he know? Is it worth to even speculate? When it had to end either way?