Despedida

I am typing this from the sky – in a plane, winging my way from Madrid to London, back to the good ol’ British Isles that I came from. Two humungous matching suitcases, weighing precisely nineteen-point-five kilograms each, are stowed below me; I have negotiated with some young Spanish gentlemen, managing to wangle my preferred aisle seat, allowing legs to sprawl into the gangway, and a speedy getaway on arrival. Excellent. Glancing down at the keyboard, I inwardly giggle at myself, catching sight of my fingernails, painted fluorescent pink and yellow alternately, courtesy of the ten-year-old Spanish girl I have been looking after this year. I am wearing the same dress I wore exactly ten months and fourteen days ago as I travelled to Madrid for the very first time – I’m nothing if not consistent.

From August 2014...

...to July 2015.

I like aeroplanes – I like the efficiency of the whole process; I like being ungrounded, away from the world for a while; I like the inbetween-ness of being neither here nor there. There is time and space to think, to listen, to anticipate. Presently, I have plenty to be thinking about: each second brings me further away from the second place I have called home, yet closer to the first. Excitement and a hunger to move on to the next adventure swim around my head, along with sorrow at departing from people and places that I have come to treasure. Cognitive dissonance, if you will. Am I ready to be leaving? I think so. Will I miss Madrid? Abso-flipping-lutely.

Perhaps I won’t miss the temper tantrums of an angry seven-year-old, or the swelteringly sweaty, sleepless nights in an air conditioning-less bedroom. I can probably live without the sixteen minute waits for a metro, and the awkwardness of living with your employers. Actually, in many ways, I am overjoyed to be heading back to the land of tea-drinkers and unnecessary apologisers, where I don’t need to run through grammar structures in my head before I speak, where I can walk into any supermarket or corner shop and cheaply and easily pick up a bottle of Dr. Pepper, and where the people who have known and loved me for all my life are easily within my reach. But I will deeply and desperately miss: the beauty and bustle of Madrid’s many plazas; the constant excuse to run around and act like a fool with two wonderful little humans; the regular consumption of the holy trinity of Spanish tortilla, homemade gazpacho, and, of course, my one true love: green olives; belly-laughing over tinto de verano; dancing until dawn in the depths of the hideously cool ‘Malasaña’ district; churros con chocolate, and, of course, my beautiful patchwork of friends from all over the world - genuinely some of the best people I have ever met.

From waltzing outside the moonlit palace, to uncontrollable laughter in a random Spanish service station in the dead of night, to deep and hilarious conversations over cheap coffee every week, to walking home together through the Retiro as the sun sets over the Glass Palace, to happy Sunday evenings of curry eating and cracking up, and finally to dropping everything and dancing madly to Mr. Brightside on my final night in Madrid, it’s always the people that I’ll cherish, far more than any place. Those people who have made me smile, and laugh, and think… this year would have been nothing without you, and I am so grateful.

There are too many memories to write down, and too many people to thank for what has been one of the hardest, strangest, saddest, happiest, most unforgettably amazing years of my life, but now that it’s over, all I can say is that I’m SO glad I did it. I’m actually thankful that I didn’t get into university, thankful that I went on that au pair website, got on that plane, and found myself in an unknown city, living with unknown people, speaking an unknown language. I’m thankful because I turned all the unknowns into knowns, and, not only that, I had an absolute blast! Whilst this year was not a holiday – au pairing is certainly not for the faint-hearted, teaching English to a group of Spanish six-year-olds is like taming a pack of wild lion cubs every day, and I was studying for an A level retake on top of working two jobs – I really did have SO MUCH FUN, and it’s left me raring and ready for my second year of adulthood, (not that I feel particularly adult-ish, by any stretch) whatever that may look like. Ends lead to beginnings, and that really is something quite marvellously exciting.

 My ears are popping; the seatbelt sign has illuminated. So that’s it. My two hours of inbetween-ness are up - time for pastures new. Good afternoon, England.