I want to go home. 9 months is the longest I've been away from home, and frankly, I want to be frolicking in a green, humid Minnesotan summer with my friends and family. I want to eat mac & cheese, hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans, hashbrowns, corndogs, cheese curds, peanut butter, ranch, and BBQ.... but not all at once of course.
I want to be able to get into a car and drive. I want to eat lunch at noon and dinner at 6. I want to be around other Americans. I really do want to go home.
But I really don't want to leave. I want to continue seeing snowy mountains every day. I want croquetas, jamón, churros, and tostada con tomate to be easily accessible and always available. I want to get free tapas whenever I want.
I want to see color. I want to see palm trees. I don't want to be thousands of miles away and 3 time zones apart from my friends in this country. I do not want to leave.
Thus the problem.
Right now, our departure looms over me, but I'm definitely not home in Minnesota either. This is the conflict I wake up to every day. When I think of ascending over Minnesota and seeing the miles of lakes from the sky, I smile to myself. When I think of emptying our drawers of our clothes in our Spanish apartment, my heart breaks a little. If only I could live on both sides of the world simultaneously.
Leaving Spain will not be like simply leaving a job; I won't be able to see my friends anymore, and the Granada mountains will disappear permanently from my life. Thankfully, many of my friends are leaving Granada around the same time Micah and I are leaving. Most of my friends are from different cities around Spain or Europe, so they will also be returning home in June when the school year ends. But if I stayed in Granada, they would at least be within reach. Minnesota is nowhere near Europe.
On the other hand, many of my friends in Minnesota will not be there when I return either. Many things have changed in 9 months, and Micah and I will be walking into a completely different life at home where people have literally moved or moved on from the life they were living when I was there.
So here we stand with a month and a half left in Granada, Spain. I love this beautiful city, and the closer we get to leaving it, the more precious each day becomes. In reality, we have an opportunity to truly, deeply appreciate the next few months of our life on both sides of the world. This next month and a half, we can appreciate everything Spanish and the next month and a half after that, we can celebrate and savor everything American. We can open our eyes wider to see the beauty around us that we usually take for granted in both worlds and in both cultures.
And that new feat of genuinely enjoying the present can start today.
