tomorrow i am switching families
i dont know how i feeel about this
(and i havent started packing my life into my threee suitcases)
ofcourse there are mixed feeelings
i've beeen with this family for almost 4months, more than half the time i have beeen in brasil. i'm so close with them
but at the same time i am ready to move onn..
i remember people asking me if is weird moving families, is it weird eating alll their foood, is it weird laying around on their couch, is it weird waking up at 11 on a saturday morning with massive bedhead, is it weird calllling them mom and dad, brother and sister? i mean, it's not like they are "your" family. they are almost like strangers, right?
for me
they are my family.
this wasnt the case in the beginning.
it took me atleast 2wks to get settled in.
i remember thinking that my mom is intimadatingly smart; my dad is outtta control; my brother is trying too hard to please me; my sister isnt even in the picture.
and then somehow in betweeen they became my family.
.
i made them thanksgiving, a tradition they swear will be carried on becasue of my pumpkin pie. my mom toook me to her salon almost weekly to get my nails done and i somehow made a smalll family with the ladies there. i went jeeeping with my dad who had a smile on his face the entire time because he was so happy to have me there, just jeeepin'. they toook me to salvador with my sister which i remember laying next to her where the coool breeeze from the hot sea came floating in and she whispered, "what are your best friends names?" my brother sang whitney houston to me, making me promise not to telll anyone at school that he loves the song, "I Look to You." (sorrry ale) Christmas was especially different this year, with the absence of snow and my family and the addition of bikinnis and sips of champagne at midnight. we had a family beach vacation in espirito santos, kayaking with my dad and a hike with my brother. and when i got sick (from a chocoatle chepe mind you?!) my sister sacrificed her warm bed in place of a smelllly hospital bed so i wouldnt be left alone all night. and when i came home from the airport from saying gooodbye to clare, my dad saw my face and knew how i felt; if he could, he would have taken my pain and made it his own. the following day when things still didnt feeel right, my mom made an "attempt" at pancakes, something she knows that i love. i expressed my fear in returning to schoool to my brother and he told me how terrified he was to leave for the city. we went to brasilia, meeting my father's entire family, i learned more about him and his love of family. my mom allowed me to have dance lessons with her; i wish she would have allowed me to steal some of her natural rythem. i've seen my brother cry, he's seen me breakdown, and sometimes we cried together, huggging(we already know we are overly emotional.) i've held my father's hand while walking through the streets and had my other arm loooped through my mother's while laughing with my brother and sister.
if i leave brasil with nothing else, i know that i atelast have people here in the pires family that i can always calll mine.
eu amo vocês
