Buenos Aires Panic
We're going to Buenos Aires tomorrow. Argentina.
You don't know this but BA is the site of my own personal Eat, Pray, Love story.
I moved there in 2009 on a Fulbright grant. I was completely heart-broken and thought that my life was pretty much set in sadness. I welcomed a change and a different scene. I moved to a strange land where I didn't know anyone, the language, and was heading out to do research and work at a school full of little portenos.
I know it's a huge cliche, but I found myself in that city. I discovered a yoga studio a few blocks from my home and took a few classes. It was my only experience with yoga aside from a cruise ship class. I fell in love. I started doing yoga 4-5 times a week. I jogged in the park. I made incredible girlfriends from Australia and Belgium and Amsterdam. I went out dancing. I lost emotional baggage and physical weight. I did neuroscience research and developed lesson plans. I drank a lot of Malbec and ate an entire cow of steak. It was one of the most fabulous times of my life. I left 4 months later a completely different and happy person with optimism restored.
I've longed to go back there ever since and share it with my husband who has never been. I want to rewalk those sidewalks and calles and sip yerba mate and eat medialunas and sip cortados and do yoga in my studio and go out dancing. But we had a little person.
Thus my anxiety.
I'm torn between revisiting the site of my rebirth and leaving the little person to whom I actually gave birth. I've been smelling her obsessively, squeezing her and over-kissing her. I'm getting tightness in my chest when I think about leaving her for 9 days. I'll come back and she'll have learned new things, will be able to say new words and do new activities. I'll have missed those things.
At the same time I'll have reconnected with my husband (who I don't really reconnect with enough) and taken some time for myself. The practical me knows that this is the right thing to do. When will I have the time or ability to do this once we start in on the second kidlet?
But the mama tiger in me is stalking in her cage worried about her little cub. The struggle of mommyhood. I know she'll be ok, I worry about me without my little red-headed giggler for 9 days.
I'll need an extra bottle of Malbec for the flight. That might do it. :)
You don't know this but BA is the site of my own personal Eat, Pray, Love story.
I moved there in 2009 on a Fulbright grant. I was completely heart-broken and thought that my life was pretty much set in sadness. I welcomed a change and a different scene. I moved to a strange land where I didn't know anyone, the language, and was heading out to do research and work at a school full of little portenos.
I know it's a huge cliche, but I found myself in that city. I discovered a yoga studio a few blocks from my home and took a few classes. It was my only experience with yoga aside from a cruise ship class. I fell in love. I started doing yoga 4-5 times a week. I jogged in the park. I made incredible girlfriends from Australia and Belgium and Amsterdam. I went out dancing. I lost emotional baggage and physical weight. I did neuroscience research and developed lesson plans. I drank a lot of Malbec and ate an entire cow of steak. It was one of the most fabulous times of my life. I left 4 months later a completely different and happy person with optimism restored.
I've longed to go back there ever since and share it with my husband who has never been. I want to rewalk those sidewalks and calles and sip yerba mate and eat medialunas and sip cortados and do yoga in my studio and go out dancing. But we had a little person.
Thus my anxiety.
I'm torn between revisiting the site of my rebirth and leaving the little person to whom I actually gave birth. I've been smelling her obsessively, squeezing her and over-kissing her. I'm getting tightness in my chest when I think about leaving her for 9 days. I'll come back and she'll have learned new things, will be able to say new words and do new activities. I'll have missed those things.
At the same time I'll have reconnected with my husband (who I don't really reconnect with enough) and taken some time for myself. The practical me knows that this is the right thing to do. When will I have the time or ability to do this once we start in on the second kidlet?
But the mama tiger in me is stalking in her cage worried about her little cub. The struggle of mommyhood. I know she'll be ok, I worry about me without my little red-headed giggler for 9 days.
I'll need an extra bottle of Malbec for the flight. That might do it. :)
Comments
Post a Comment