“Just think in two weeks from today you’ll be waking up in your own comfortable bed to the smell of chocolate chip pancakes—no waffles, chocolate chip waffles—and Sandy will wake you up by sitting on you and you might be annoyed because the baby kept you up all night, but then your mom will bring you a cup of coffee and say how excited she is to spend the day with you.” She paused before adding: “Oh, and at some point during the day you’ll probably end up watching Netflix.”
I stared at Megan in amazement as she crossed the street. Three months ago we had been acquaintances on campus slowly developing into friends, but now here we stood in Havana as close friends and as roommates. Megan’s words shocked me. They were proof that she knew details about my life—the recent birth of my nephew, my dog’s name, my favorite homemade breakfast—and she had cared enough about them, about me to remember. She knew me—better than most people probably—and yet she wasn’t running for the hills but instead flagging a botero to take us to school. And she knew me because I had told her these details, because she had cared to ask me questions and earned my trust to receive their answers. Her words were proof she had scaled my walls that so many others had failed to.
Her words also shocked me because I knew there was an undeniable truth to them: I’ll spend the summer at home in California sleeping on my pillow-topped mattress, and one of my first meals home will inevitably be chocolate chip waffles, and the baby will probably keep me up some nights—though at the moment I doubt anything about my perfect nephew could annoy me—and my dog will most certainly sit on me to wake me up just in the off chance I had been dreaming of walking her and wanted to make it a reality. I’ll walk her down the stairs into the kitchen, where my mom will be brewing my coffee or—if she has to go into the office that morning—where she’s left the ground beans and water kettle out on the counter with a loving note. It’s a completely spoiled life, and I wonder how long it will take me to get used to it again. A month? A week? Just a single day?
Living in Cuba has generally been incredibly uncomfortable—I’m hot and sticky with sweat all of the time, people always seem to be staring at me on the street making me hyper self-conscious, the food is consistently mediocre (except when it inconsistently makes your bowls explode in ways science had as of yet not known possible), and making plans for anything is like asking for a flash flood to rain down, the bus to breakdown, or for the library to be closed even though its published hours say it should be open—and yet, I’m grateful to have been uncomfortable because every situation—frustrating, embarrassing, or beautiful—taught me something about myself, about what I’m capable of handling, and about where my limits are. It’s made me appreciate positive aspects about myself that I previously hadn’t noticed, but it’s also made me confront parts of myself I don’t care for or like.
My roommate has a saying: “If you’re uncomfortable you’re growing.” Well, this semester has been an almost perpetual period of growing for me. But how long till the discomforts of Cuba start to fade from my memory? How long till I start to forget to be grateful that I don’t have to boil the water before I drink it, that cold coffee is offered at nearly every café and to-go cups exist? Or fresh vegetables—how soon till stopping on the way home at the local grocery store with filled shelves of products be considered normal instead of a privilege. I don’t want to forget the lessons I learned here because they were hard fought and earned, but I’m afraid they will be forgotten or soon discarded along with my luggage tags. I won’t lie—I cannot wait to step off of the plane and hug my family, kiss my new nephew, and drink a Peet’s coffee, but I’m afraid my privileged life in the American suburbs won’t have the time or place for my new Cuban perspectives.