The Gift Of Awareness

I've been here a little over a week and my journal is already almost completely full. I've been writing in every free moment that I have, and still I feel as though the events of my life here are impossible to keep up with. It's so difficult to even know where to begin when I update this.

Friday night we all went out to an extremely fancy dinner (that cost a total of 10 dollars a person), and then out to an Indian night club for drinks. It was an amazingly good time. There was this huge dance floor that we all took full advantage of, and when "Billie Jean" began to play, I got more excited than any person ever should. Needless to say, I went around and got the entire bar to come dance their hearts out to Michael Jackson. It was fantastic.

As we wandered home around 2am, we turned the corner to find ourselves face to face with a huge elephant roaming the street. The man riding it saw our excitement and had the elephant stop so we could pet him. He offered us a ride, but mama always taught me not to take rides on elephants with strangers (thanks, mom), so we just hung out with him for a while in the street.

Three hours later, four of us crawled out of bed to begin our journey to the Taj Mahal. It's about a three hour car ride away, and I loved every minute of it. We drove through the countryside, through the cities, through the inbetweens. It was all SO beautiful, and just how you'd picture it. There were fields dotted with men and women in bright oranges and blues and greens. There were crowded streets filled with cars and cows and pigs and people. There was immensley saddening poverty and really gorgeous views. It was all so sublimely eye-opening.

I am so aware here, aware of the world, aware of myself. Everything makes me think about life on so many levels. I think about why we're here, why we're so different, why we're so similar. I think about what's beyond it all. It's a constant struggle to compare my life with those impovrished souls I see on a daily basis. I'm always thinking "I could never live that way," as though it were a choice, as though I wouldn't have to learn to if my circumstances had been different. No one should have to learn to live that way, but they do. They learn. They learn to work hard for nothing, to beg, to accept their place in life. They learn to lead a life of poverty.

How much I've wasted - time, money, resources, knowledge. How much I've taken for granted. I know that it's a cliched revelation, but for the rest of my life, I'll remember these people in the fields and on the streets. I'll remember during my comparably insignificant daily struggles, the eyes of the mothers outside our car windows begging us for money, the men on the street with missing limbs trying to get from point A to point B on their own, the abandoned children crying for attention and affection. I'll remember them, always. I'll take them back with me to my world of beers and starbucks coffees and AIM and facebook, back to the world of frivilous dillemas and needless complaints. I'll carry them home with me and share the gift they've given me, this gift of awareness.

I know that it sounds somewhat lame, but for the first time in my life, I feel whole. My friends have always been such a big part of my life, of me, and surely they always will be, but I'm more than that here. I'm more than a collection of my friends. I am me. I am this brave, friendly, independent person out exploring the world. I miss all of you, of course, but I'm also so grateful to have this reminder that I am capable of being separate from you. I'm defined as more than the girl from Chestnut Hill. I'm living my life for me, and it feels wonderful.

I have so much more to write, especially about the children I'm working with, but it will have to wait for now. I'm happy to be able to write here, but can only be here for so long before I hunger to get back outside, back out into this phenomenal and magical place, back out into life. I am so sublimely alive.