What Is To Be Gained

Favorite quote of Television History: "You're not just an idiot, Patrick. You're also my friend."
I'm watching Spongebob in Spanish, and there was just this scene where Crabbers, Bob, and Patrick were painted Mrs. Crabbers's house, and while Spongebob and Crabbers did their job and painted the house, Patrick, oh Patrick, painted the ground.
That made me laugh.
I always stop when Spongebob is on, one, because Spongebob rocks, and two, I'm reminded of my mom, who freaking loves Spongebob. And the quote that started this post, that's hers (well, from Spongebob, but for me, it's hers.)
The television has switched over, to news of a Venezuelan court ruling against Hugo Chavez's government, saying it is illegal for them to censure RCTV in Venezuela--that free speech must exist, even under his dictatorship.
People are cheering there, I wonder how significant this is for Venezuela, because this has been a big issue for many days, maybe a watershed moment, but maybe just a first step.
I hope I don't lose this excitement. I mean, TV, oh yeah. No, in all seriousness, I was thinking of my return trip today, going back home. It's so close, and I don't know what to feel about it. I feel my experience is complete, or nearly there at least. After final parties, Cusco with my party, seeing off the people I've met, going to see my final children, I will feel ready to leave, to exit this experience knowing full well that I have been present at every moment.
But I wasn't sitting in Carlos' room the other night, and we were talking about how we're different. How it will be to return to Harvard, to return home. What have we lost in turn with what we have gained?
It comes slowly. The distance between yourself and friends you have known, between what you loved and what you love now. But it's so present. We know that when we go back, other people we people different in our eyes. Looking ever so different, because we are changed. And this is a beautiful thing, to have gone through this and come out the other side wanting something greater than ourselves, and knowing that the rest of our lives will be in search of that.
Carlos told me he won't be able to focus at school, won't be happy, if he cannot find someway to do what he is doing now--to help someone, in some way, in any way possible.
It's a revelavation, to feel so absolutely fulfilled from service, from helping others, from being here to give to others. But how do we continue it, how can we go back to the world we knew before, without feeling that something is missing? Do we leave here and leave behind everything that we have grown into? I don't believe this, although it is hard not to have this doubt. It carries on, with you, only fainter. But when we come back to it, it will ignite once more just the same.
For now, we wait. We sit. We finish these last two weeks and give as much as we can. And sometime in the future, I don't know when, we will come back to it.
Because it's a purpose, so completely solidified in our hearts that it is changed the very people we are. For better, I hope, and for the better of those around us.