The Power of Goodbye
When your heart‘s been elsewhere and you kinda need it back.
Exactly one year ago I hyperventilated in the arms of my ex-boyfriend and best friend, Marc, at the Barcelona El Prat Airport and begged him to ask me to stay. He wouldn’t. He knew, in his typically annoying wisdom, that I had to go. If I were to progress professionally, I had to leave Barcelona. Maybe even personally. Even as I type this, my throat starts to close up and my eyes water at the memory. Barcelona was and still is my heart.
2017 hadn’t started out easy and generally didn’t start to go well till about mid-May/June. 2016 had closed out with a cyberstalker harassing me, my confusion about my love life which didn’t let up up until far after I left, and of course my leaving my home of 8 years. It felt like the universe was trying to knock me unconscious, like it knew I’d give in eventually. In true Jade-form, I chose to look at the bright side always. If I could go back, I’d tell myself to tackle these negative things more head on. But hey…hindsight is 2020. All I knew was that this wasn’t a breakup with Barcelona, in fact, we were still in love..and yet, I still had to go.
So do I regret it? Am I going back? What have I learned?
Do I regret it?
I don’t regret it so much now but I did for some time. It’s so clear that unless I adjust a bit to American culture again, I don’t make sense here. In so many ways. Some things, you just can’t help and 8 years is a long time. That’s high school and college combined. Imagine how much you changed in that time.
Am I going back?
No. At least not in the foreseeable future. As I mentioned before, my professional career is undoubtedly here. Lifestyle though? Definitely Barcelona. It’s healthier, sane and therapeutic by nature. What I’ve started working on is trying to incorporate that lifestyle which means so. much. to. me. here. And let me tell you, it’s hard. Americans have a very different view from Spaniards/Catalans (and generally Europeans). I’ll avoid politics in this conversation ( fear not, NO ONE is perfect ) but within lifestyle, Spain’s got it down, man. What I tell everyone is… They work to live, not work to work like in the states. Just the approach to life is different, leisure is different. I could fill this entire website with stories with real life things I’ve experienced just this year where people looked at me like I had 20 heads. “Drinking wine at an event you’re working at? Whaaaaaat?”
What have I learned?
A lot. Mostly about myself, about reverse culture shock, about people…I’m working on not getting sucked into amenities that I don’t need (Amazon, Dunkin’ Donuts, Uber..) because essentially it’s all about consumerism here, so that’s really hard! Also, don’t get me wrong. It’s really nice! And that’s why it’s hard. To boot, I’ve actually got to build my credit score, pay for health insurance and yet still have to pay copays and for medical tests, had to up my student loan to go to school again…I mean, I could go on. And the funny thing is that Americans reading this will say…”Well..yeah”..but my European friends are mostly going to be like “WOW…That AND Trump? Why are you THERE?” Which leads me to…
Why am I still here?
I’m here to defeat Trump via the arts. I’m a loud, brown woman that has literally no shame. I will make sure that immigrants and minorities get heard, that they feel welcome, that they feel they can express themselves whether that means literally or figuratively. I’m exactly who needs to be here championing for the people. All the sane people who actually believe in humanity over overinflated and misplaced nationalism. Add to that, the arts! An ever-changing reflection of society. Entertainment. An escape!
I like to throw around that Barcelona was my phD in life. And it was. Don’t get me wrong. I still ache for it, for people there, for the culture…for the cava and calçots. But for now, I’m working on finding my place here.
To be honest though, I pretty much would like to die in Barcelona…dramatic? Maybe. Truthful? More than you could know.
