Ten months later and although some things continue to excite me, I have to admit that the romanticism is over. Well at least most of it. I am here living a kind of 9-5 life, the only difference is that I have the amazing ocean surrounding me and the sweet and juicy tropical fruits that are no longer a rarity but an everyday thing. I can remember my first few nights here, actually the first few months I would say, I was completely astonished at everything I saw. I was in awe at all of the cultural difference that I saw and related to. I finally understood, after 18 years, where certain words came from and why Dominicans did certain things. Now the romance is gone. I don’t necessarily think is a bad thing that some things seem normal to me, but it’s certainly not as fun.
This morning I woke up all confused, which is very normal for me. I was a little homesick, ok maybe a lot homesick and for some reason I was particularly missing New York City, one of my favorite places in the world. Then I began to think about all of the aspects of a city that I missed from Boston and thought, but I have a city down the street from me, what’s wrong with me!
Well let me break it down for those of you who don’t know. Santo Domingo is a city, it has many franchises similar to those in the US, it has some tall building which are mostly for residential purposes, it has tons of people, I believe 3 million to be exact, heck it even has a metro system, well not quite the system yet because there is one line, but you get my drift. Now why am I not satisfy with this particular city you might ask. It’s actually quite simple, the Zona Alta, as the city like part of the city is called is composed of a lot of middle class/rich white Dominicans. There is no diversity like there is in NYC or in any other major cities of the world. There is no little Italy, or little India or believe or not there is no Washington Heights. I live in the old part of the city la Zona Colonial. Here you will find a bunch of really cool colonial looking homes and tons of tourism, but it has some character and personality, something that in my opinion you will not find in the city part of the city.
It’s funny though. I have all these crazy ideas of things that I would like to do here, I don’t know why I haven’t started. I was thinking about it this morning, could it be fear of failing, I don’t think so because I have the mentality that in case I do fail, I just keep it moving. I guess real life is stopping me, or at least what I’ve been socialized to think of as real life, don’t act like you don’t know what I am talking about, going back to school, eventually marrying and having children with someone etc. Come to think about it, in the end it’s just fear.
I havent been here in quite sometime. And I can related alot to your posts. We are soo willing to do it all, achieve the best--but by being afraid to fail, we limit ourselves. We forget that after every failure comes bigger victories. As long as we try, at least once--easy said than done I know--we can accomplish at least a little bit.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day growing up sucks. You forget about yourself needs and desires to embrace the hunger to have a successful career.
BUT!!!
I love and miss you. and we need to catch up. Asap. <3
Raissa