My last day, what is the right thing to say?

How do I say good-bye to a family I will probably never see again…A place I probably will never visit again but also never forget?

    It’s hard to say good-bye. I feel like I’ve spent weeks saying it and the most important one, to my family, I was too tired for. Stumbling out the door, barely being able to carry my four bags and stand upright I kissed my messy haired host-mother on the cheek one last time at 3:45am.

   Before this moment i had spent a lovely 7 days at Nosara beach. I had one day to put my things together and leave the next morning on my early flight back to the US of A. I was kind of a mess; mosquito bitten, ghost lice and i knew the place I was going back to in Portland but not sure if it would remember me. But before i left, I was surprised at what I came home to (other home) from the beach.

   Coming back to the house after going to the beach was like going backwards yet I saw the future at the same time. My room was empty and had started to be put back into what I assume was its original condition. There were hair products in the bathroom - not mine - and the absence of my post it by the toilet no longer reminded me what the word in Spanish was to urinate (orinar).

  A new student had come while I was gone. I became jealous and protective of ‘my house’ and ‘my host family’ like I never had with other visiting students.
I sat in my room, in my home, with my family and thought about where I was going next…I questioned if that place was still “home” or if I could have some sort of joint custody arrangement with both places. This wouldn’t work out because dollars always get in the way of things, like divorces and dreams.

I look back on my year in this country listing all the firsts I’ve had:
1st's
– alcoholic drink at a bar
- Bungee jump
- Surfing
- Swimming in the ocean
- Gambling
- Smoking a cigar
- Driving stick shift
- Playing with monkeys (or any other sort of physical interaction with monkeys)
- Getting a professional message

2nd's
– getting lice
- Writing and performing an original poem
- Gaining weight/losing weight
- Visiting a volcano
- Feeling out of place (this is more of a reoccurring thing rather then my second time)

  I’ve packed away all my things; my body and scent no longer occupy the space it had before. So what’s left, memories that will be forgotten after some amount of time? What am I taking with me (besides the lice)? My scars?
                 My silhouette is replaced by new dust particles filling in the empty air.
I was affected by you Costa Rica, by your uneven streets, your ability to smile in every situation (except perhaps a missed goal), your salsa clubs and high heels, your thunder storms and sunsets, your pineapple fruit and the way you make plantains taste soo good, I was affected by your mountains and the communities that lived in/on them and everyone I ever said a probably non-sufficient good bye to.

Good bye. Cao. Hasta luego. Auf Wiedersehen.

To show what I have accomplished academically this semester I made this: http://www.serioussillyness.weebly.com
It’s an online portfolio that shows some of the papers I wrote and movies I made and some pictures I drew.

I also developed the film pictures i took throughout the semester.
               here are my favorites: