There… for a while
On feeling alone in a new City that spoke my language and the friendships that carried me through it all.
There is always a moment in life that the path we are walking on bifurcates from the paths the people in our lives are walking on. Most of the time we don’t realize we are suddenly walking on our own.
This happen to me… almost a decade ago. I remember vividly how it had been my dream to study abroad, since I had decided to study a profession that, for profesional purposes was better studied in my home country because it is a protected profession and you need a licence to be able to work.
So I decided that, since I wouldn’t be able to go abroad for my degree, I would do a Master’s Degree abroad. So when I graduated college, I had already been accepted in a Master’s Degree in Madrid, Spain.
I was so excited and happy. I was constantly daydreaming about all the things I would do, all the places I would travel to and the friends I would make…. Nothing could have ever prepared me for the reality of it.
The moment I arrived to my home for the next 12 months… It all came “crashing” down. I was suddenly in a new place, my family was there in the same city but they were in their hotel and I was spending my first night at the apartment where I was going to live for the next year.
I was suddenly very aware that I was on my own for the first time ever in my life, and it felt so so lonely, scary and unknown.
I distinctly remember the moment my parents left that first night… I went back to my room and just sat down on the bed in complete silence for like 5 minutes (which if you know me, you know that that only happens when I am mad or very focused working or reading), my mind was blank, just absorbing it all in, listening to the sounds of my new surroundings and watching the sky turn dark.
I remember the swift deep coldness that spread over my whole body. That place was so unfamiliar, everything that was known to me was gone, left behind in another place and another time (I was a whole ocean away from my home, a 10 hour flight and 7 hours ahead of everyone back home. So when I woke up around 7 am, I would have to wait until 1 pm to call someone and when I went to sleep around 11 pm everyone was still at work, so my hours to call were limited).
A crippling fear took over me, I honestly couldn’t even begin to imagine surviving my first week on my own once my parents and sister left. I was constantly looking at the calendar, knowing that in a matter of a very few days I was going to be truly on my own for the first time ever. I knew no one and I didn’t know the city nor my roomates.
The first month was hard. I cried most of the days and most of the nights. I missed things I never even thought I would miss, people I didn’t think I would miss and places I didn’t think I would miss.
It took me a while to get my bearings. During that time I realized that my path not had only bifurcated from the path of my family’s and friends, but that it had completely strayed. I didn’t think it would ever mesh again, and it actually never did.
During the time living and studying abroad I grew in unimaginable ways. I learnt to truly be on my own, to be a 100% dependent on myself (at least in being in charge of myself, because economically I was still dependent on my father), and to learn to truly and fully enjoy my company and be on my own.
I had lunch and movie dates with myself, I went to 2 concerts on my own (one in a another city I hadn’t gone to previously), if I wanted to see something downtown I would simply go, I travelled by train and plane on my own. It was freeing in ways I had never been before. Little by little I became someone stronger.
Looking back now it all feels like a moment, just a blink of an eye, and it doesn’t feels so bad, but living it was the single hardest thing I had ever done, even to this day.
Because I not only went to study abroad, I purposefully decided to not even ask if there was anyone from my country I knew there, so I left with my clothes and my hopes and dreams for that year, inserting my self in a new culture, with different customs and ways to see the world.
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Even though language wasn’t an issue ( I come from a Spanish speaking country), it was hard sometimes because some phrases or words were used and I couldn’t understand the context so I would be confused or they would use some words that back home were insults or rude and I would get offended, or vice versa (that was a thing I did not even consider I would have to adjust to).
I vividly remember once (and this is a funny annecdote), we were in class and a classmate was saying something about a big fraud scandal and at the end he said “ostras tío como te la has liado parda, que se te cae el pelo”…I just remember how me and all my latinamerican classmates started laughing so hard… I had tears streaming down my face.
The thing about that phrase is that in my home country “liado parda” is not a thing we even say, and saying “que se te cae el pelo” about a fraud scandal sounded so darn crazy (we don’t use that kind of expression unless one is losing hair and is talking about going to the dermatologist or having a medical condition), so you can imagine how it sounded like nonsense to me.
So I heard that phrase and all I could think was of someone going bald and having a Grizzly Bear (because in spanish we know pardo as a last name or as a Grizzly Bear) and I couldn’t imagine for the life of me how that related to a fraud case where someone was in jail.
What my classmate was actually saying was “this person screwed up big time and is getting in a lot of trouble over this”. This is just many of the different ways sometimes communication got lost in context, this one was funny… but there were some that could make things get tense quickly.
So that year was very very challenging, I had to make new friends, learn the rhythm of the city and the pace of life there. It was grueling, there were days when I felt so overwhelmed I thought that year would never end, so hard I thought I wouldn’t make it to the end of the year (not that I was suicidal, just that I truly thought about going back home and quitting my Master’s Degree).
At the end I made it, obviously, and looking back I think that was the single most craziest decisition I have ever made and that I was so brave, not only for leaving but for going with no safety net.
The thing that carried me through it all was my roommates. I had 5 of them and I am truly grateful for them. They inclued me in everything and were nice, I realise now how lucky I was. I could have ended with strange roomies or bad roomies, but I ended up with really great people.
I lived with a girl from Murcia (Eva), a girl from Italy (Carol, whose mom was Colombian, so it felt more familiar to talk to her at the beginning), a girl from Islas Canarias (Claudia), a couple (the guy (Carlos) was from Albacete and the girl (Vicky) was from Andalucia).
The couple loaned me a thick blanket for winter (the season changes was another thing I had to get used to, in my country we only get sunshine or rain… that’s it, so rainy or sunny season) and they even moved out before the winter ended and they let me keep it until spring (in case you were wandering…of course I returned it!).
The other 3 girls became my rock (even though Carol moved out like 3 months before I left). Without them, I honestly wouldn’t have been able to make it through that year in the way I did. I had so many great moments with them, so many laughs, I always had company… I never felt alone with them.
It has been 8 years, because I returned to my home country mid 2018, and I still talk with 2 of the girls (Eva and Claudia). It is amazing that even though we don’t even live together nor in the same place (Eva is still Madrid based, Claudia is back in Canarias and I am back home) we still talk and laugh, a little bit different but it feels just the same.
Even though we all have gone to through some serious stuff and have changed a lot, we still talk and make time to connect, it is different, because 8 years for sure do that. But they are still some of my closest dearest friends and are still among the very few people I want to tell when something important happens in my life.
So yes… the beginning was very complicated and felt very imposible, but I made it and I wouldn’t trade it for anything (what I would definitely change if I could, was to be more social, specially with my Master classmates, because, yes I talked with everyone and ocasionally still talk with a few classmates, but I don’t really have close friendships with them, that is the only thing I regret about that year).
I loved the experience, the people, the food, the culture. To this day Madrid is one of my favorite cities in the world, it will always have a very very special place in my heart.
It was the City that was witness me grow and learn about life, the City that allowed me to see how strong I was already (mentally and emotionally, because everyone that has left home, even if it is for a short while, can tell you it is not as easy as it seems) and to learn to be strong on my own.
