290. Guatemalan Love

A listener fell in love years ago while living in Guatemala. The love ended in heartbreak, and on a recent visit back to the country she struggled with whether or not to reach out to him or enjoy the country outside of this relationship.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Nora: I’m Nora  McInerny, and this is It’s Going To Be Okay.

This is a daily podcast, and it’s also a group project. Every day, we try to put a little bit of okay in your day. We want you to start or end your day with the opposite of a doom scroll, so we bring you one okay thing  every day

Caller:  After five years away, I went back to every sense. The taste of the matchless tortillas, the sound bath of easy laughter from my host mom and sister echoing through the kitchen, the tightly woven belt called traje típico around my waist, the sight of stranger smiles when I spoke K’iche The smell of roasting coffee beans over the wood burning stove.

But fiercest in my memory was the sense I wasn’t strong enough to return to, not even if I fought with all my cognitive abilities. I couldn’t return to the ache.  I finished Peace Corps on April 1st, 2019, myself the April Fool. I’d fallen in love all the way hard with a Capitan Meno, a person who lives in Guatemala City.

Since going to grad school and becoming a teacher, I’d reached out in several emails, I’d even friended and unfriended him on social media. He got married, then he got divorced. My heart did everything a heart does when it’s in love, and it can’t let go. For the record, I was the one who ended it, but he was the one who moved on.

I had left the country that taught me how to listen in Spanish, make jokes in K’iche the Mayan language, and barter in a little bit of both.  In that Pueblo, I learned more than language can touch.

I knew if I went back, I would call him and I couldn’t do that.  It would take another five years to forget how he smelled, looked, tasted, sounded, felt. So I didn’t go back. Someday was a far off plan. Until this year, my fourth year teaching Spanish in the classroom of jittery post pandemic tweens, I found my flow as a teacher.

I learned how to bring joy through a language, not verb conjugation, but speaking, sharing, seeing, understanding, words strung together to make meaning of life. I booked my return.  But three hours after my plane landed, the gnawing started. Just email him. Tell him you’re in Guatemala. No, wait. Tell him you’re in Guatemala, but it’s best that you not see each other.

Hope you understand. Take care.  Instead, I put on my running shoes. I’d forgotten how hard it was to run on the unforgiving pavement. They don’t work for street dogs at every turn. When I made it to the Pueblo after four hours on three buses, I saw my host sister.  Even though time has a menacing way of pointing out changes in skin, more lines, more shadows, she looked the beautiful same to me.

We kissed on the cheek. I had forgotten the feeling of greeting with cheek kisses. In a few hours, I heard the laughter. I held the tortillas. I did not feel the ache. Then again on my last night in town, I checked into my Airbnb. I looked at the empty room 40 minutes away from him, maybe 45.  Not resisting?

That I was sure I could do, because I’d caved and emailed him before, but with no other reason than to feel the surge of warmth to the sadness that followed when the tide receded.  But I was okay. I didn’t need to hear his voice. What I wasn’t sure that I could do was resist, and to choose my own growth over my easy love for him.

So I chose that instead.