Kiss me and smile for me

After weeks of waiting for the Spanish Consulate General of New York to take their sweet time getting my visa to me, that big brown UPS van finally made its way up my driveway and my passport is in hand! My flight is booked for tomorrow night.

Leaving home is posing to be a more difficult task than originally planned. So as I sit in my room, the last night for a long time, I am thinking of people and places and things I will miss. Talking about all that will just bring the waterworks, so I will spare you all.

Welp, here's to adventure. To letting the big moments and the small moments, every part of this, fill my soul and reinforce the good person I'm trying to be. Here's to not getting arrested or making a single trip to the hospital. Here's to always being busy but never too busy. To being brave and fearless. (and also to not being too lonely that I break down and buy myself a dog..).

Talk to you on the other side of the pond.

As much as there is excitement- there are doubts (which I find to be totally healthy)

I know that regardless of what's to come, I will not regret ten months in Madrid. No matter how I spend my time, or what my attitude becomes, this will be an experience I will weave into my life. I will once again find I have run away somewhere, mainly to hide from reality, only to have my eyes pried open wider than I could ever imagine. This backwards way of living has become the only way I know how.

Sunrise run at Goedgedacht Farm, South Africa

Here we go again..

For those who followed my extreme highs and lows while in Cape Town- thank you. Your support meant so much to me. I am now taking you with me to Spain. To Madrid. I leave Connecticut in less than one month.

Back up. I'm going to Spain. Why? When? How?

When I was finishing up my masters in Cape Town this spring, Nacho showed me this program called Auxiliares de Conversación. The program allows Americans, Canadians, and other native English speakers to live in different areas of Spain for about ten months, teaching English in elementary and high schools part-time, with health insurance and a monthly stipend granted through the Ministry of Education of Spain. This wonderful opportunity was placed before me- a chance to work on my Spanish, to live the life of a Madrileña, a way for us to finally be together. It made sense to apply, so I did. And after months of anxiously waiting, I was officially awarded the academic grant. My placement: Madrid.

Since that great day, when I rushed home to have a Skype celebration with Nacho (which consisted of victory dances and hugging my computer) my life feels as though it is moving in fast-forward. Gathering documents for my visa, preparing for my move, saying goodbye to family and friends.

I have had just enough time to soak up some summer sun, fatten up on mom’s amazing dinners, and fall in love with the crickets every night. As my time at home is drawing to an end, I am starting to feel restless- there is only so much preparing one can do. But for now I am reveling in quiet evenings in Salem, CT and the ease of familiarity with my routine at home.

I came across this word the other day, and it resonated with me so deeply I had to share:

This word means so much to me. It is how I always feel with Nacho- our short visits together always seem to end before they begin. But in this month, until mid-September when I pick up and leave, I am prelamenting for my home. I am missing the smell of my kitchen, the dent in my car, the comfort of my bed while I am still in it. It is a strange feeling and one I have a hard time dealing with, but as sad as I am to leave the people and place I love, I am just as happy to soon be with the one I love, to start a new and exciting future. To have adventures, to learn, to grow.