With this semester wrapping up so quickly (5 days?!?!?!?), I?m simultaneously wishing for more time in Madrid, and that I was already home.
I feel sacrilegious saying that I?m ready to go home – like small children would gasp and ladies faint if they heard me say it – but I am! I?m ready to see my family, my wonderful friends; I?m ready to pet my dog! I think I?d want to stay longer if I didn’t have another adventure on the horizon that was tempting my daydreams away from the one I?m living now. With this summer so full of promise and fun, it?s hard to keep myself here, especially for these last few days when I?m finally forced to study for finals when all I want to do is frolic through the Madrile?o life. Realizing that I get restless after 4 months in an adventure is worrying for me though: can I have a new adventure every couple of months? What happens if I get a boring office job where I only get two weeks of vacation PER YEAR??? How do people live like that? Is that normal, and this adventure-hoping I do the oddity? If it is, I?m going to fight normalcy as hard as I can.
Odd as it sounds, going home also feels like an adventure. The prospect of a normal, run of the mill doctor?s appointment is fascinating to me; and driving! Talk about thrilling! Going to the grocery store, sitting on my own couch with my own dog, watching my own tv with a jar of peanut butter and some bacon (the real stuff, none of the jamon we have in Spain) is so exciting it?s almost unfathomable. The normalcy of life are both the things I look forward to most (in bacon?s case), and my worst nightmare (life in the cube farm). Really, my life has reversed itself – Spain, once completely exotic and foreign, is now normal, while my life in Texas is the intriguing one. I?ve carved out this little existence in Madrid, favorite cafes, regular routes to friends? places, easy conversation with my host family, that the prospect (actually, the reality) of going back to Texas feels completely new.
As soon as I get excited about my new bacon-filled quest, I?m depressed about leaving Madrid. That life that I?ve built was hard won, I made it exactly how I like it, it?s an amazing little spot to be in, and to give all that up sounds horrible. Even if I come back later in life, it won’t be the same, it won’t be as wonderful as it is right now, because it will be different. Still, this has been a great part of my life, and every time I have the urge to stay here forever, I have to remind myself that this wonderful lifestyle would have to change: I?d need some source of income, I?d need to study more, get my own apartment, I?d have to live in the real world (which is such a sad reality of life). It?s worth it to go home and preserve this adventure exactly as the perfect time it was, while moving onto the next one.
This semester, while bacon-free, has been amazing, but I?m still ready to leave. I?m ready to pack up my whole 50 pound (or less) presence and move it on back to Texas, only to unpack, repack, and move another 50 pound part of my life across the country. I?ve learned a lot and done so much these past four months, and hopefully it?s just a crazy, wonderful start to the next part of my life.
Good news is, that next part of my life includes regular access to bacon, which, let?s be honest, is all the adventure you need.