For 18 years, I lived on a small, family owned vegetable farm in a town that boasted it’s on-the-rise population of about 1,042 people. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I found entertainment in the various landscapes and natural structures that were abundant in every direction I turned. From pretending my kingdom was the woods behind my house when I was 5 and full imagination, to spending my time snowboarding and hiking as I aged; nature and the simplicity of rural life were where I found comfort, where I felt most at home.
My family farm in the summer.
When I graduated high school, I decided that I wasn’t quite ready for University. Instead I found myself on a plane, flying to Madrid to live with a Spanish family for 10 months as an au pair. The family lived in a house on the very outskirts of the city, but everyday I would ride the metro for 30 minutes to go to my Spanish classes in La Puerta de Sol, the city center.
In the first few months I was very hesitant and unsure of everything. I would use google maps religiously and check my route constantly as I walked down the streets, afraid of being lost and not finding my way back to the center of the city. I would spend my weekends in el Parque de Retiro, sitting out in a quiet spot hidden from the world by trees, searching for that feeling of “home”. It wasn’t that I didn’t find the city beautiful. In fact often I was awestruck by the buildings, the colors, the expanse. And despite feeling homesick and that I didn’t belong, I was taken aback everyday by the new things I was seeing and experiencing. In the beginning, I was looking at Madrid through a lens of my past experiences. It was hard for me to let go of the comparisons I would always think of between my life on the farm and my life in the city. For that reason, I felt so hesitant because I knew nothing would be the same as what I was used to.
The Metropolis building in one of the busier areas of Madrid.
But after a while, that feeling of being homesick and the uncertainty I had started to slip away. I had learned how to find my way around the streets without the use of maps, I knew that wherever I ended up I could just hop on the metro and find my way back. I started to interact more with the opportunities that presented themselves around me, spending my weekdays wandering around the neighborhood of Malasaña and my weekends taking little trips to the towns that surrounded Madrid. Without even realizing it, I had stopped thinking about the differences between my old life and my current one. Madrid had started to become a place where I felt comfortable and a place I would miss when I left. I realized that life is still life no matter where you find yourself.
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