Can you believe I will miss the taxi drivers?

It´s over.

In a couple hours, Hannah and I are heading to the airport. A few hours later, if all goes right, we´ll be taking off from one of the shortest runways in the world, leaving behind the people and places who have been our family, our world for nearly 14 months.

A lot, of course, is running through my mind. How I will miss buying bags of dripping pineapple!And hiking through the woods to La Venta! And tucking in my little Casa Suyapians every night! And the things I won´t miss: the old fat ugly men´s unsolicited "compliments" on the street, mangy dogs, persistant taxi drivers, Ranch food.

But you know what? I actually may miss those things too. I´ll miss everything--the good and the bad are, together, what made this experience. The good wouldn´t be the good without the bad. Everything worked together to make this year what it was and I wouldn´t change it. How can I begin to see everything that I have learned, every way in which I have grown?

As I fly away from the Ranch, from Tegucigalpa, from Honduras, I know that this has been the best year of my life, the most worthwhile, one of the hardest and, simultaneously, the most beautiful. I am deeply grateful and very proud. I never thought I could do this. Then, as I realized I could, I never thought I would be so touched by the children of Rancho Santa Fe and make friends who will be my friends forever. I was wrong. I did this. And was changed in the process.

Now, I know, you might be thinking how clichéd and, for lack of a better word, cheesy, I am being. But I find myself truly overwhelmed by leaving, by these experiences, by going home and staring over. I hope through these powerless words and trite attempts at expressing myself, you can understand a little bit of the confusion and montón of emotions.

I am leaving. That´s settled. How I feel? Not so settled. But ready and excited for whatever follows.