I always
told myself that I shouldn’t get attached, that I wouldn’t get attached to anything and anyone because everything is
perishable and everyone leaves in the end. Or maybe it is I who leave for fear
of being left. For now it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the best way to
test my perseverance was to leave everything and everyone for a while, to see
whether, despite my general intolerance and narrow-mindedness and
pigheadedness, I can go on with my life without all the things and all the
people I had promised myself not to get attached to. And here I am, in Murcia,
Spain.
The
beginning was easy, contrary to the fact that beginnings are usually hard. This
beginning was intangible: some paperwork, booking a plane and opening a
monetary account. Then it got harder; packing, farewells and finally the
reality of sitting on a plane to a place I had never been to. This was no
longer on paper, this was palpable and it hurt like hell. Not the fact that I
was leaving but rather the awareness that I can’t just get on a train and
return like I used to when things were going bad. This lack of possibility is
suffocating for me.
It seems
that I suck at the no-strings-attached business. Come to think of it, I am like a cat, I walk my own
ways and I like my space but I like to
have a place to come back to. Selfish of me, I know, but don’t get me wrong, I
don’t take advantage of people, no. I am there for them, to a certain extent,
and I don’t expect them to be there for me, I’ve learnt it the hard way that
it’s better not to expect. The people who surround me and the people I’d like
to call my friends but am too cautious to do so are there for the time being
and I cherish the moments spent with them, knowing that they are ephemeral and
at some point in the future these people will be gone. I don’t regret it when
they are gone. I like to think that their leaving is like an expiry date
and that this is how it is supposed to
be, I stay, they leave. No strings attached.
When I got
off the plane, the August heat was like a slap in the face and yet, finding a
bus and getting on it was so easy. I felt accomplishment. “Ok, I am here, in
another country, another city and I’m doing great.” Only later I felt like a
cat who was taken all its familiar ways away and given new ones, a whole
labyrinth of new ways, to be honest, and who wasn’t given a map or a list of
spots. “This is where you are going to eat, and this is where you are going to
study and this is where you will go to do shopping.” No. This was all new. It
still is and I don’t like it. I’d rather go back home, to my old ways, instead
of being here, putting myself to the test, doing something just for the sake of
its contradiction with the way I am. Deep down, however, I am looking forward
to my reaction to those contradictions, to the challenge they offer.
Five
months, this is how long I am supposed to be here. Now I am counting the days
left because of the pain and the loneliness and the fact that all the
magnificence and complicatedness of Murcia are alien to me, including the
language to some extent (but language is a different story) and definitely
including the culture and the mentality of the Spanish. I don’t think I will
ever understand that.
First of
all it is hot but I can manage hot. The winter will be worse most probably
because it’s cold and humid and they don’t have central heating or any heating
for that matter. I will worry about the winter when it comes. Now, what drives
me crazy is their daily schedule. The Spanish, or the Murcianos work from 10 to 2 and then from 5 till 9 p.m. At midday
they eat and sleep and in the evenings they go and meet their amigos, which lasts until 2 or 3 a.m.
This I will never understand. All day wasted, chaotic. When I teach people
English, my day is even more chaotic with little breaks between the classes but
I hate it and I can’t get used to it, no matter what. I like when things are in
order, when there is no need to multitask, one thing ends and another begins
and so on, you’ve probably got the gist. Ms Order should be my second name, or
Ms Withdrawn or Ms Control Freak.
I don’t
like surprises, I don’t like not knowing things, I don’t like getting lost in
this maze of streets and alleys and squares, every one of them looking the
same. I get lost even with a map but at least I’ve learnt to ask the way and
not give a shit about the fact that by asking the way I depend on other people
and that my Spanish lacks some grammar.
