I've seen worse
A page in the diary "Good mourning!"
Written by Luise 24. Feb 2008 07:00 AM
Hi diary and everybody out there,
you can't imagine how often during the last few weeks I saw my canadian standing in front of me, trying to talk me up a mountain. "You'll make it!!! You've seen worse."
The last three weeks were very hard, truly a learning experience on which I will feed for ages! It was terrible and exhausting, but I learned a lot and I surprised myself with my inner strength and patience and my determination. I was good. Really. I suffered a lot, but I am still alive, sitting in a launderette in Valencia, on a quiet saturday evening, and although my life here still has not really settled yet, I feel like having retrieved control over my life. Which is a good thing.
I found a new apartment for myself, which is really beautiful and much better than the room I was supposed to have. Unfortunately it is not available before March. I decided to take it anyway and now I'm staying in a backpacker's hostel for the last 3 weeks of february. And this is a typical day:
I hear my alarm clock at 7.00, overhear it several times before i get up and have a shower. I sleep in a dormitory with 3 other persons, and we share the shower with the whole floor.
After the shower I sneak back to the room and grab my stuff silently. On the way out I say hello to the "night nurse" - of course not really a nurse. It is my secret nickname for the guy at the reception, a beautiful long-haired spanish John Lennon who always has time for a word or two and who isn't afraid to correct my grammar errors. Which is good. And by the way: I like his smile.
Then I have to run! Since last weekend I am the proud owner of a bicycle, which makes everything much easier. I go to the train station, and on a good day there is enough time for a coffee and a croissant.
25 minutes by train and 10 minutes by bicycle later(through industrial zones, very ugly), and I'm at work. My colleagues are both spanish and german, and I already feel quite at home with them. They are very friendly and open, and they seem to have waited for me! I already have a lot of work which sometimes makes me sweat because of the deadlines, but they all appreciate the style change in the documents caused by their new advertising poetrist.
Most of the time I am very tired. I don't sleep so good in the hostel, and the foreign language exhausts me. I am not accostumed to getting up so early. And there are still soooo many private problems to solve.
Usually we have a coffee break at 11, I go out for coffee with the girls. WE also have an orange juice machine in the office, so I can enjoy a fresh juice anytime (remember, we are selling oranges).
At 2 pm we have a two hours lunch break. On lucky days I manage to arrive at the kitchen in time, so I can eat and read something and have a "siesta", a nap on the sofa.
The afternoon is short, from 4 to 7 pm. Then I take the train back to the city. Sometimes I reward myself with a starbucks coffee or a visit at the bookstore, but most of the time I arrive at the hostel at 8.30, already almost too tired to eat something, and not at all in the mood to communicate with people.
I'm counting the days until my move to my own apartment. A short week left. Next saturday I will have the keys and I will spent the whole day carrying all my belongings from the cellar where they are stored at the moment up to the first floor, and the I will have a peaceful place just for myself!!!!!!!!!
Although I am very tired and I feel that I'm living a hard time at the moment, there are so many good things.
Work. Work seems to be good. I have much responsibility and there is almost noone to say what I have to do or not to do. I can be as creative as I want! My well-regulated work life seems to be a good environment to heal my damaged soul from the ups and downs of the last 2 years. It feels as if I have found a new home for myself. I'm not perfectly well and I still have my lows, but I feel safe. The sun will set and rise and I will get up and go to work.
Food. The food is soooo much better than in germany. I go to the central market every saturday and buy heaps of fresh fruit and vegetables for little money, and it is so much fresher than back home. Well, because they grow it here :-)
The sea. I have been at the sea every sunday, it seems to develop into a habit. A long walk by the sea, listening to loud music from my ipod is sooooo good for the soul. Sometimes I feel like dancing, sometimes like crying (which I do both when I feel like it), but it always does something with my soul, it touches and moves me. And there is nothing better than than a view into "the great wide open".
Weekends. I really enjoy them. On saturdays I sleep late. Then I have a breakfast on the plaza outside in the sun. Then I go to the central market. Then, after having organized some stuff (like telephone, bank account, bicycle) I do something nice. Today I visited the Botanic Garden and sat there with my spanish grammar book. I really need nature at the weekends, as I am working in an industrial zone for the whole week. I was surprised to learn that in the botanic garden there are living more than 60 cats in all colours you can imagine. There are almost more cats than plants, you see them everywhere, having a nap in the sun, hunting eachother, begging for food. They're not afraid of people, and you just have to open your bag - they will come, curious, hoping that there will magically appear some food out of your bag...
There is so much more. Next time I tell you!
And here is what helped me through these rough three weeks:
- I am just a human being like everybody else. Every other person in this situation would have experienced similar feelings of loss and fear. But this is just life: Things happen. We make the best of it.
- Why do I have to experience all this suffering? Because I have left my warm and cosy house and went into the world outside. And in the world outside things ARE sometimes difficult. If you go outside, you risk difficulties. But you also "risk" development and good surprises.
- It is not nice to be homeless and live in unsettled circumstances for a while. But things will change. It is just for a while. It is normal for someone who moved to another country. It is not easy. But it was couraged to do it anyway.
- This is NOT happening for personal reasons. God doesn't hate me. Nobody wants to torture me and I either haven't done anything wrong. It was just bad luck. And if you go outside, you risk to have bad luck sometimes.
- I have seen worse. This is not walking the camino santiago with a broken heart, and this is not sharing the ups and downs of somebody who changes from nice to mean, from happy to angry and back within a minute - and you are unfortunately stuck in the situation, because you are 6000 miles from home and you love him and feel with him and share his desparatiion.
This is something I have under control. This is something I have planned for myself. This is something I want and something I chose. This is not an accident - it is just a long and exhausting drive.
These and much more thoughts helped me. Seems that I have learned a lot over the last year - more than I thought.
After all this writing there isn't much of my coins left to read the recent entries, but I will come back.
How are you, friends? Is Depnet still the same good old nuthouse? :-)
Hey Gyps, kimberly, winterrain, studying, ayla (are you still there?), Hippiechick, Bruce, Hounddog, Babz, and everyone else whom I forgot to mention - how are you guys?
Hoping for some good news. I have been really looking forward to reconnect with you. I missed you a lot, and -surprise! - I missed the clearness I often feel when I report events or thoughts here in my diary.
Love,
Luise.