Seventeen Beds

The theme of home segued almost too perfectly into this month, where we arrived in Buenos Aires to see another Remote Year group, Darien, finishing up their year just as we were beginning our sixth month.

Meraki has something of a relationship with Darien. We’ve been following them through Latin America since we started in January, getting hints and tips, learning from their mistakes, and we even got to meet up with a bunch of them at Carnival in Barranquilla. The latter has been related to me as being a fun time. What I can remember of the incident corroborates these reports.

I was lucky enough to change my itinerary and flew into BA a day early, and attended their final farewell party. I left early.

I didn’t leave because of the double power hour, I would totally do that again. It wasn’t because of the crying, the smiling, the hugs, the sharing of their stories throughout the year. It was because it hit me head on that in 7 more months, even less now, this will be me. I’ll be the one crying, smiling, hugging, and recounting stories with my family before getting on a plane and, as much as I don’t want it to be true, never seeing some of them again.

The juxtaposition to last month is poignant. I’ve grown closer to this group of people in 5 months than I thought possible, and here I was witnessing another group, whom I’ve come to love and respect as well, say goodbye.

This entire situation was only made more impactful by a possible itinerary change in our last month. Changing our itinerary could mean that some of our family drop out of the last month. I’m not a fan of the change myself, but after much reflection, the thought of not spending one more month with this family is too heartbreaking to miss. I’ll be cold, I’ll be miserable, I’ll be poor, but I’ll be in Kyoto in December with my Meraki family to see this thing through.

I’m not sure I can do justice to my own emotions right now, so instead, I’ll share someone else’s. From one of the Dariens, to his family. It’s an amazing piece of work. It’s the best example of how to explain what I’ve been feeling and experiencing since January, what I’m feeling now, what I’m going to feel, what I’m experiencing, and what I’m going to experience in the coming months. It articulates so much of what we’re going through. What we’re doing. How we’re growing. Better than I could ever hope to. Thanks for putting this together, Eddie.

Finally, to echo one of my favorite parts of this video:

6 Countries
16 Cities
11 Flights
6 Buses
2 Ferries
1 Rental Car
17 Beds

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