"Sometimes I wake up and I don't wanna be here." -childish gambino

I have been busy prepping my life physically and mentally for a four month break from my beloved NYC which includes a trip traversing from Mexico City (D.F) to Panama to Colombia and beyond.
I have always avoided world travel for a variety of reasons (fear of plummeting death from airplane, fear of vomiting a lot from motion sickness on airplane, fear of being in a foreign country mid apocalypse mayhem) but definitely the biggest reason by far is that I never wanted to become some world traveler asshole.  You know, like wear Teva's all the time, pronounce foreign words with an exaggerated correctness completely out of context, adopt the native dress of the countries you've visited like some sort of badge, speak about the people and the customs of the countries you've visited "knowingly", have a white boyfriend with a pony tail-just tons and tons of really horrible characteristics a person can have.  The absolute worst.  I like to think my genetic inherited ability to define myself as "brown" will sway any of this type of behavior but in reality I am indeed a product of the westernized world, a fact that becomes abundantly clear to me even when I visit my family's native (and colonized) island of Puerto Rico. And native is pushing it when my ancestors not so distant past migration to the island means I have Spanish, Italian, Taino, African (?) etc blood flowing through my veins.  I am distinctively "new world", the colonized and the colonizer all in one body, genetics that will influence my perceptions and intuitions on my upcoming trip along with my North American ego.

Me (age 5) fishing in Panama, a regular weekend activity.  Hermano to my left, Papi's legs in the background.

My father was stationed on an army base off the Panama Canal in the early 80's, so my initial memories of my life are painfully romantic.  Parrots, picking mangoes, playing with my brother in sugar cane and in tropical torrential rains, dolphins, old trains, in fields late at night hunting crabs with my father and uncle, rain forested mountains, Panamanian folk dances and music in Panama City, markets where my five year old self selected out bunches of quenepas and small purses fashioned and being sold by indigenas, etc.   I am excited about returning to the region where my life more or less began and to see if there will be a stirring in my chest.  When discussing my trip with random people a few have said "you won't want to come back".  I am not sure if this is something people say in general when folks are about to venture to some great place or if they really think I won't come back.  Perhaps I won't. Sometimes I do like to imagine that there is a hidden zipper somewhere on me I haven't discovered yet (but I suspect exists around one of my big toes), but once I do I will be capable of zipping off this top and become something new or what I truly am.  My insides actually being composed of twigs, leaves, light and every tongue and this fall when picking fresh fruit on the same roadsides I did when I was five, I'll find the zipper and slip into the woods where I began.