Independance Day

While people at home in the States celebrate the Fourth of July, I’ll be thinking of another day of independence - July 28th. As Peru’s national holiday celebrating its own independence from Spain, it is also the date printed on my ticket to fly back home to Albany.

It seems appropriate, and no coincidence at all, that I should be returning home on a day that represents self-awareness, identity and freedom.

I do feel like I’m breaking free somehow, much more so than when I left home back in September. I didn’t come here to escape or to adventure out on my own. Instead I came here as an act of stepping into relationship. And rather than seek freedom, I entered into some very serious bonds and commitments.

However, the bonds that have held me during this year, in my family and at work, have not been restrictive or limiting. Instead, they have been fluid and resilient because they have been based in faith and love.

Another bond that I deliberately entered into is with G-d. A huge component of my experience in Peru has been an experiment in giving up control and putting my life in G-d’s hands.

I was tired of over-planning my life and writing its pages before the story even began. So, I chose to let go of my expectations and trust the ways in which G-d might work through me in this new place.

In doing so, I have felt a strong sense of being led. At times, this involved arriving in the office certain mornings and being swept up in a new project or invited to enter the outskirts of town on a home visit.

Other times this meant sitting at the kitchen table with my eyes sinking with exhaustion, but staying anyway because my host father just began to tell a story. And still other times, I found myself crying uncontrollably and accepting this also as G-d moving me along somehow.

In going along with the flow, I have noticed a change in my demeanor. Generally, I have been more quiet and subdued, more pensive and reserved. I have only recently brought out my more silly and lighthearted side, which has felt like a distant voice that I forgot I had.

At times I have held back, resisting the impulse to complain and even ask questions. I’ve felt a myriad of emotions, ranging from utterly frustrated to simply elated, few of which I’ve openly expressed while being here.

And this has led me to wonder whether trusting and following G-d means having to dilute one’s personality or, at times, censor one’s true self.

I learned an important lesson when my brother visited Huánuco back in January. I was anxious about how he might adjust to staying with my host family. I prepped him with what to say, how to say it, and generally how to act. At first I thought I was being helpful, but Carl responded by saying, “Can’t you just let me be myself?”

The question is, have I let me be myself this year?

Maybe… sometimes… I don’t know. It’s hard to tell when my “self” is constantly changing, constantly becoming.

What I do know is that I’ve allowed myself to detach from who I think I am in order to see certain possibilities of who I might become. Letting go of a rigid sense of self has allowed me to be more flexible, more sponge-like, soaking up all the influences around me.

I’ve entered a child-like state while here, one that embraces newness and change and is more intent on learning about myself rather than proving myself.

I think of Peru’s Independence Day as my own declaration of independence because I will be leaving a community and a window of time that has shown me the importance of being me.

As I leave, I will carry a deeper understanding of my own identity in relation to myself, others, and G-d. And this, I think, represents more freedom and independence than what initially brought me to Peru.