that's what i got a lot of tonight when one of our guest's kids came over for a sleepover with their mommy tonight. she's actually our only guest currently (besides a long term guest who's moving into her own apartment tomorrow) so it was a neat experience to have her babies come over. there's four of them, and they're all under the age of five. needless to say, she has her hands more than full. but they're so cute. she has a five year old daughter, a four year old boy, and twin two year old boys. she's mexican-american and the baby daddy is nicaraguan so they're beautiful children. dark skin and huge brown eyes. i loved every minute of being with them tonight. it was so good to finally have a crazy house full of kids. i just know that i'm going to have one of my own someday and love it so much so it filled me with joy tongiht to spend that time with them. i made macaroni and cheese and hotdogs and they just thought i was the coolest "lady" ever. they kept calling me lady all night. "hey lady, come play with me!" "hey lady, can i hug you?" of course you can you precious little munchkin. they had no idea how much i wanted/needed a hug and they didn't seem to mind me squeezing them for minutes at a time. although their family is from all over south amerca, they really didn't know any spanish. and their mom had told me that she wanted them to learn so i started teaching them little words here and there throughout the night and their clear favorites were "beso" and "abrazo...kiss and hug. so everytime they would hug me they would say "abrazo! abrazo!" i was livin the life...smiling ear to ear. it was the greatest blessing because i've been feeling really homesick the last couple of days, hence me not really feeling like blogging. which by the way, i was going to start this post with an apology but then i realized, while i love posting so that all those i love can know what i'm doing/how i'm doing/where i'm going, i'm not really doing this for you all anymore. that's definitely the initial reason why i started this blog, but it's become something much more to me. it's now something that allows me to reflect on my day...and to be honest, the past few days, i haven't really wanted to reflect much. a.) because i'm exhausted. in every sense of the word. b.) because i knew that if i started blogging, i would just whine incessantly about how much i miss all of you and that would just be annoying...theraputic, but annoying. but that's why tonight was such a beautiful night for me. a simple night and definitely not anything exciting but beautiful. i don't know how i feel about my saturday nights now consisting of hotdogs and floor puzzles with toddlers, but i definitely enjoyed myself.
but kind of going back to me being homesick, i'm actually grateful i am (even though i don't feel grateful when i'm crying into my pillow about how much i miss those i love) because some people really never feel this way...the aching pain in the general chest region you get from missing someone so incredibly much. the saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder" has never been more true in my short life than it is now. one of my favorite people pointed out the fact that i am "2,000 miles away" from home (2,090 to be exact, but hey, who's counting?) and my eyes immediately started welling up with tears because i hadn't thought about how far i'm actually away from the ones i love the most. i really have started to appreciate those i love so much more than i did before i came out here and i hope that it's noticed but if it's not, i'm going to keep doing it. because loving makes me feel alive. when i'm actively loving people, missing people, i feel real. i feel authentic and i feel most myself. so i just want to encourage you, whoever you are, to make sure that you tell those you love that you love them. that you show them, in anyway you can, that you care and that you're thinking of them. i just think it's so idiotic when people don't do this as much as they possibly can...that people see gushing love to those you care about as something that's overbearing or annoying. i find it really disturbing that affection and affirmation is not at the forefront of a great deal of relationships these days. what's so wrong about being vulnerable or with putting your guard down? why do we not want to let people in? because we're afraid of getting hurt? bullshit. i mean seriously, newsflash people, love is entirely about risking heartache in an attempt to heal the hearts of others. and you know what happens when we don't allow this vulnerablilty into our lives an relationships? people become lonely. and as mother t once said, "loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty." i have no doubt that this chick was right on the money when she said this. and you know why? because these women that i'm "serving" and "helping", it's not the hunger or the material poverty that is the most painful for them. it's the neglect, the abuse, the alienation from others in their lives. they don't sit on the couch at night crying to me about how they don't have a car or a home, they're crying about their various heartbreaks...the loneliness they feel everyday. so seriously, take my word for it (or the beatles), all you need is love.
besos y abrazos,
caitlin
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