And It Breaks My Heart

(Pictures on facebook by tomorrow)
I feel like I'm taking too much in. Like sometimes I'm overflowing, getting outside of myself a little bit. I was sitting back today, thinking about being with the kids for the first time, thinking of last night's unbelievably drunken but beautiful events. Me, Carlos, and Nadia listening to my rap mixes, with me wearing a cowboy hat, jeans, and no shirt. Letting it rain, falling back in laughter, drinking Cusquenas. And I missed home.
Because it was too much. I was exhausted today, as we traveled to the beach, and it was cold and cloudy. I missed my beach. I missed not being exhausted, not having anything to care about, living with no pressure, with no weight, with no idea of what the future is to bring.
But I was exhausted today. So the weather didn't help, and last night didn't help, and the work week, waking up at 7 each day, didn't help.
Yet, I think the biggest thing that was exhausted was my spirit, my energy, and my heart. I've been taking a lot in these past weeks, and at some point it gets hard. And it's not hard in the sense, I can't deal with this anymore, get me out, shut down time. It's heavy, it's a weight, because you are doing something so uncomfortable and out of the ordinary.
It was Thursday. Gustavo, this little boy of six years old, came to me at the end of our class, where we played hopscotch with days of the week and played music with tiny tamborines, where they were always smiling because I couldn't stop telling them how great they were, and said to me, "a mi me encantate." I love you.
It broke my heart. This little boy, with problems keeping up in his first grade class, and a life living on a dirt road in one of the poorest towns in Lima, broke my heart. It was only 45 minutes we were together. But it was so fantastic. I loved him, too, and I wish I could do so much more.
I stepped out of the classroom after this, looked out at the school, and finally realized how real this was to me. It was surreal to that point, with me asking how did my life bring me here, how was I here at this time and place? Then a flood hit my body, of emotion, realization, reality, I don't know. I lent against the wall, and I didn't know what to think. It was too much. It was a weight, of something that was so hard. This has been the first time I've gone and done something like this, being in this poor community, being with these children, walking in this decrepid neighborhood where they have nothing. I am here, I am here in a place so hardened, so much more difficult then I could ever have imagined.
And I take it in, but it's not enough. I want to do more, I want to give more, but then, I am exhausted. Drained and broken-hearted, by how hard life can be for these beautiful families and children.
This exists, you know, but it really exists when you're there. And it's hard, and it's exhausting.
I talked to this abuelita for 15 mintues while she sat and waited for her granddaughter to end here 45 session with the teacher. She said she never sits, never rests, because she has to put food on the table. Her daughter is dead from cancer, so she is the mother to two orphans, 13 and 14. Her other daughter works from 5am-9pm, so she is all that her other two grandaughers, 4 and 7, see. She cried, she was in pain, and she has no way out. All she can do is continue, somehow getting her family through school, somehow putting food on the table. I told her she was an angel, that was she was doing is so hard, and I love her for it.
I told her, I'm here, I want you to know, by my presence, that there are people who care, that will fight, that will help others with whatever means they can. I said I will be that in the future, and I meant it.
It was a burden, because this is the beginning of my life. Everyone I meet here is too nice, they here politics, Harvard, and looks, and they want a picture--the next President, they say. And how that is such a stretch, if being President allows me to somehow help these people more than they are now, then so be it. Because I know now, for sure, that's what I want to do with my life. And that is one of the biggest things that has happened to me in my life.
And it's one of the most exhausting. I said all I can give you is a hug, un abrazo, and I took her in my arms and hugged her. And tried to give my love, through a touch, loving great however I can.
I looked out at the school, watching the children run in the durt field, at the center of the schoolyard, playing soccer, and it was all so tangible, and I could not believe that this was it. It was so big, but I can't really think about that, or don't really have the ability to, right now because I'm still here, being present in it.
I'm going back on Monday, to be with Gustavo and Gaston and Ana Lisa another time, then Tuesday, and then I am gone from their lives, onto another school.
My aunt sent me an e-mail today, calling for me to be ready to receive, to take in energy to be ready for new things to happen and new gifts to come, as was read in the Native American medicine cards she draws for me. It was a great feeling to know the forces were true, and working together, and the breeze is blowing toward me, and I'm here, and that I can love great here and being my future, right now.