To Buenos Aires, with Love

My dear Buenos Aires,

You have enlightened me.

You have ignited me.

You have made me.

These last forty days were simply more - more than I could have imagined, more than I could have asked, more than I could have wanted.

The narrow colonial roads buzzed with taxis, cars, and buses swooshing past. The subways overfilled with morning commuters masterly maneuvering around one another as they pursued their personalized paths. The glow of the luminescent street lamps and neon shop signs blanketed unexpected escapades in unfamiliar places. Oozy, cheese pizzas flew out of crackling ovens accompanied by the ideal Malbec, which was always close at hand. Rose-colored musicians and artists lined street corners and bounced from subway car to subway car, optimistic that their talents could be enough.

Argentinians smiled. They said hello. They laughed. They loved. They never hid their emotions - just as you never hid yourself.

You unabashedly awaited my arrival. You never camouflaged yourself behind a facade or deceiving mask. You were yourself, utterly untroubled in your own skin. You were candid from the very moment my booted toes grazed your cobbled curbs - you would win my affection.

You, my love, are so hard to abandon. And not because of these surface qualities but because of your more profound attributes, because of the buried treasures you unearthed for me.

It was with you that I grew. I learned. I practiced. I failed. I struggled. I doubted. I persevered. I felt embarrassed. I considered giving up.

But you, you encouraged me. You made me want to be better. You made me want to do more. You made me want to continue hunting, creating, and growing.

You gave me foundations. On your avenues, I met kind strangers. With the sounds of the city purring in the background, I molded memories. On those infinite nights, where the taste of sweet invincibility lingered in the air, you gave me new friendships that ripened into family.

You gave me love, so I loved you back.

To not have loved you would have been inconceivable.

I feel as if I have lived ten lives in no more than six weeks.

You, you, my love, gave me everything.

But all chapters of spellbinding stories reach their end sooner than desired.

I journey back to where I belong with a mangled heart, with the sentiments of a summer romance wrongfully ended.

But, you will eternally consume a portion of my very being. The moments you have given me, the lessons learned, the ways I was transformed, and the relationships that matured - those will not be readily washed away. They'll continue to shape me. Their breath will never cease to softly swirl in my soul.

The memories may fade as years zoom past. The stories of these days may forfeit the sweet excitement they once embodied as their precise details dissipate. The distance may weaken the thick ropes of friendships once nourished by restless nights and covert adventures.

Yet, what you meant to me - what you still mean to me - I will never forget.

The dance has ended, but I can still feel the pleasant tingle of your tango's melody in my ears.

Thanks to you, my future holds opportunities.

I'm motivated. I'm eager. I'm confident. I'm curious. I'm never giving up.

It wouldn't be an epic love story if the farewell didn't taste of the unabating flames of hell, which leave their scars in mysterious manners.

I will not surrender to murmur "goodbye," for its finality is too firm.

Which leaves me with but one concluding utterance that I confess before our wires uncross for an undetermined amount of time:

Thank you. For everything.