This Saturday, May 15th, marks our two year anniversary of returning to the United States. Leaving the place where we started our marriage, birthed our baby, and had our first home was, in a word, heartbreaking. I miss that part of our life. Spain became my home in a way that I never expected. The people, places, food, and, in some cases, smells became ingrained in my life and heart very quickly. My spanish was not great but it wasn’t terrible either. I adapted. I knew I had “made” it when I had to take myself to the ER while my fluent spanish-speaking husband was TDY in Norway. “I got through that? I got this whole living abroad thing down.” (My exact thoughts hailing a cab down to go home from the ER). Anyways, it was and is home. Moving there centered me. I feel like I really started to live who I had always wanted to be while I was there.
During our time in Valencia, I very much settled into myself. I realized a lot- both good and bad. That’s what happens when you don’t have work, family, or a ton of friends around; reflection. I spent the first six months processing the past few years of my then life. What became apparent to me was that I was broken. My heart had been broken quite a few times (sometimes intentionally and sometimes not). I had broken people’s hearts. I had hurt friends. Friends had hurt me. My mom had died and I had barely processed it because I was so busy caring for my father and people I worked for more than I was caring for myself. Some of that was indeed intentional as a deflection and some of it was just life. Regardless, I had not properly grieved. So I spent the first few quiet months grieving my mom. Hard? Oh yeah. Needed? Hell yes. Not just for me but for the sake of my marriage and the eventual path to motherhood I would choose to take. Had I not gone to Spain and left my world behind, I probably would have made very different life choices. Instead, with the support and love of my husband, I began to mend myself.
Spain also taught me to appreciate GOOD food. Affordable and good food. It also gave me an even greater appreciation for wine. And gin. And apertifs. And olives. The list goes on. The way people live in Spain is much different than the US. People seem happier there. And to be fair, the people I knew were! They also laughed at our introductions… “Hi! I am Kendall. I am from Seattle. I work in advertising. What do you do?” Yeah, that’s not a thing. No one really cares about your profession. It’s not your biggest identity marker. Rather, an introduction would look something like this, “Hi there! How are you? Oh good. Would you like some coffee or wine? Tell me about your shoes. How has your day been? Would you like a tapa? Oh and what’s your name?” I liked that. It was simple. Plus, European architecture just kicks our American architecture’s butt. OK? I miss street dining, iron rails, bell towers and chimes, cafe con leche, and, even though it took me about 8 months to adapt to, a 10pm dinner.
Fast forward to today. Vermont is sort of an amazing place to land. And super underrated. It reminds me of Spain in terms of life being simple since we don’t have any true center of hustle and bustle to speak of. Vermonters like their winter sports, cheese, brews, and farmers markets. These are all things I can get behind. I love the beauty of this state. I appreciate their desire for smaller and local chain stores as opposed to big ones. It’s a wonderful place to have started our family together (stateside) and to have ridden out the horrors of the pandemic. And still, Issy and I have never been more sure about returning to Spain. To live.
And we will. I am not entirely sure when (retirement and potentially sooner). It’s the place I want to belong to. I love my country and am very proud to be an American. But a little part of me became a Valenciana… and I have every intention of returning home whenever I can. COVID has made that a bit tricky, but, dearest Spain, I will see you soon. Until then- hasta luego.
The Salty Exchange 