Fulfilling wishes from '93

Chile will be celebrating its Independence Day this Sunday, the 18th. But being Chileans, the festivities will start tomorrow at 1pm and end when I pass out late Monday night. Of course, this is much more than a party weekend.

A year ago I came to a point in my life where I didn't have to be anywhere, do anything, or answer to anyone. Except for Cynthia Gonzalez, my loan officer, natch. The feeling was tremendous, the possibilities were overwhelming. Being a normal girl from the suburbs who up til then had done everything by "the young adult guidebook to adult happiness", I realized that I didn't have dreams. Given a handful of freedom, a key to the world, a new prescription to see the universe if you will, I realized all I could do was analyze it and give it back. And then she came back to me. Doris at 12. About to buy "Siamese Dream", about to have her life changed; still painting her toes blue and defiantly covering her walls with high fashion photo spreads. It was the me I had forgotten about on my way to becoming one of you. The me I thought I'd always be. The me who would pass this girl on the street without a second look.

Doris at 12 came to Chile for the first time and met 40 people who in later years filled out the spaces of aunt, uncle, cousin, and grandmother. Doris at 12 wanted to bury herself in her grandmother's vineyard. Doris at 12 promised that one day, when everything she was supposed to do was completed, she'd come back. And live her life like she'd always dreamed.

Which is why, this week in this year is so awesome. 12 years, a lifetime, a second in the making this weekend I will be exactly where I'm supposed to be and dance cueca and drink chicha for my old man, sitting on a couch in a darkened living room in Florida.