Reflexión de mi aventura en Madrid

Buenos dias amigoooos!
So, my final week in Madrid; how weird is that?! I remember my awesome goodbye party as if it was yesterday, being so sad to leave all my beloved ones, but looking forward to this adventure. And now I’m almost on my way home again! Home sweet home, you can not imagine how much I miss it, especially if you remember me wanting to immigrate here and never return. I’m not saying this will not happen, never say never, but right now I’m glad I had the change to try this. I never imagined missing home this much, because I didn’t miss it that much during travelling in Asia (except for the boyfriend I had back then)

Contrary to how easy I found travelling and all the distractions that come with it, living in another country has been amazing, but not always that easy. Though I did have the advantage of having gone through the experience of finding out what certain friends do or don’t mean to me, which funny enough I was expecting to have to go through again, but no such nasty experiences (I will come back to this in a minute). I just really missed all of them/you. Especially just lying on the couch with a cup of tea and chatting/giggling/watching a movie or something. It might be a Dutch thing, because it’s kinda something you won’t do if the weather is as good as it is here (yes, the sun is still shiiiining). I also miss hearing the bell ring when nobody in the house was expecting anyone, so nobody wants to open the door and then, when I finally go down, seeing a friend, Marcy most of the time, standing there with open arms for a random, but loving hug. I’ve always appreciated this, but I guess now it’s more than ever. Even my grandma giving me kisses, way too hard and pushing her glasses in my face while doing it, sounds good to me nowadays! Or mom’s not extremely good taste in music, or my parents hilariously stupid discussions about nothing. But I’ll get there soon!

On the other side, I think the main thing I learned here is that I can build a life anywhere and with anybody I want to, as long as I want to and dare to take the steps needed for that. This might sounds like something completely obvious, which it maybe is, but now that I’ve experienced it I know it’s true. One can have every kind of relationship with anyone (s)he wants to, as long as one wants and dares to take the needed steps. As it says on a notebook I got from a friend: ‘Sí puedes soñarlo, puedes hacerlo’ (AKA if you can dream it, you can make it). Momma don’t worry, I just wanna go home now and that’s perfectly fine to me.

Thereby I also learned a lot about being friends with whoever you want to and keeping friendships. The latter is something which I realised here: I can keep any friendship alive as long as I want to and dare (with dare I mean that it sometimes requires to refuse to listen to the ego). I also have a lot of friends who I do not have to see often, neither have to keep contact with all the time.
But there are no musts. I could just put huge amounts of time and energy into a certain relationship even though I do not get anything back for it, but if that’s the case I can also just let go. And maybe we’ll meet again later and then I know I have the possibility to just pick up where we left off if I want to. Such things therefore are also just a matter of time.

Moreover I think I might have learned more about myself here than during travelling, which was not only fun, but always good. Overall I guess I learned to be less strict towards myself and have more patience when something is not perfect: the new perfect is good enough. I’ve found a certain confidence in the fact that everything will be just fine and it’s easier to be as a good friend to myself. I’ll just say that I can do whatever I want to and know it to be true, because it is (I don’t mean I can change the world or whatever).

Finally, I’ve been struggling with the idea that even though I always want to leave Holland and be free, at the same time I want to be with all my beloved ones. At times it feels like contradiction between dependence and independence, which sounds really extreme, especially the dependence, but I mean being close and committed with this. I will have to find a balance in this, which will not be easy para mi, because it is not either this or that: I cannot ónly travel; it is not being alone ór being together, but it’s being alone ánd together. Something I learned that is connected to this is the fact that peace and being alone (and maybe ‘going on adventure’ alone) are really, really important to me. I think that if I pay more attention to this in my daily life, the balance to the before named contradiction might come closer. Therefore I guess it’s time to go home and give y’all some hugs and kisses y hasta luego Madrid!