Published: Mar 22, 2024
COSTA RICA (PUNTARENAS PROVINCE) > SAN JOSÉ > MADRID > LONDON
The end of our trip has arrived. And we’ve got a long journey ahead of us, both in terms of actually getting home, but also with regards to processing it all, and feeling all the feelings that go together with coming home.
Goodbye, Costa Rica…
I’m going to finish with the same realness and authenticity I promised I’d practise throughout my writings, in combination with the “family dynamics are complex, even in the most loving of families” that I began with.
The ‘Costa Rican massage’ journey and the mini-plane-death-trap flight we had to take again resulted in some displays of travel sickness from the younger members of the family, which triggered some displays of travel sickness in the older members of the family. Sickness dominoes it is. Unfortunately, we couldn’t keep in the new fruit we’d tried at breakfast: the Rambutan. There was a semi-major debacle about who should transport the oars and the machete home, a debacle I could have called three and a half weeks ago. We’ve come back with two more suitcases than we started out with — God knows where we found them. I think my dad must have emptied his medicine cabinet suitcase to accommodate the coconuts he was bringing home. We’re happy, tired, moved, lucky people right now.
The Rambutans that came back up again
My sister and I have parted ways with the rest of the family at the airport – they’re off to America to settle my brother in to his summer internship, while the two of us are making our way back to London via a stopover in Madrid.
I’ve changed, as I’ve said many times on this trip and as I knew I would. I’ve changed in the space of such a short time. I can’t wait to see where that change takes me, and how it evolves. I feel so utterly, unfathomably privileged, and I also feel that now is a good time to reflect on that more deeply. I’ve learned more in the space of these three and a half weeks than I have in all my geography classes back at school. My mind and my senses and my pallet have expanded. I’ve written down my experiences every day in these entries, and like I predicted, it’s saved me from feeling completely alone in everything I’ve been taking in. I’m sure that coming home will be difficult, especially as the tiredness wears off and the reality hits – but I’m ready to come home. I’m ready to come home, knowing that the person coming home is different from the person who left home.
