A New Job, A Whirlwind Trip, and Why Are Feelings So Confusing?

Um, heya. Yup, it's me. Maybe you were wondering what happened to me. I'm alive and doing much better than I have been. I've just been having a hard time getting myself to write. But it was my birthday on Saturday, and this is what my sister sent me in the mail from Germany:

And so here I am, in a very boho Spanish café, drinking the most delicious cup of chocolate (cause it's a bit late in the day for coffee) and trying to gather together the scattered pieces of my life into a story.

This year has been unbelievable. Some of you have been following my recent adventures, whenever I had the heart to write about them. The truth is I don't like to dwell on the last few months of my life. Every time anyone asks me how I ended up in Spain, my heart sinks and I think, do I really have to tell this again?

Because it's been painful and confusing and sometimes very frightening (and goodness, this chocolate is like lava, but it's delicious). I had so much bad luck that you wouldn't believe it if I told you everything. I can't even believe it myself. It's like some kind of surreal nightmare.

So I'm not going to tell it again. If you want to know you can go back and read my old posts. I'll just pick up where I left off.

I spent the month of August working at a hotel/resort high in the mountains here in the north of Spain. After my employer had told me three times of his own free will that he was hiring me with a long-term view, he let me know 3 weeks in that he would be letting me go at the end of high season--3 weeks later.

So once again the rug got pulled out from under me, and I found myself both without a job and without a home (since I had been renting a house in the village that was leased by my employer for the use of the hotel staff).

Lucky for me, my workmates were very supportive. One drove me to an interview in the city on her day off, and another offered me to stay with her for a while until I could get on my feet. She had a farm on a mountainside and this was the view out my window:

Not too shabby, but she didn't have internet, which is really necessary during a job search, so I ended up driving in to the other village with her when she'd go to work so I could sit on the doorstep opposite my old house to catch the wifi. I'd check my email, and then I'd go wandering the mountains for hours to plead with God for something to work out.

It soon became obvious that I couldn't continue this way. It was getting colder and I couldn't just live outside for 8 hours a day, especially since I had left my winter clothes in Germany to pick up later and didn't even have a coat with me.

I decided to rent a room in one of the 3 major cities in the region, even though I knew it was an enormous risk to do that without a job. So I made an appointment with a landlady in Avilés, where the company where I'd had my interview was. I remember walking through the rain to the bus stop at the base of the village feeling so lost at sea, when my phone rang.

It was the family I had lived with when I first came to Spain. They said they had gotten a call from that company (since when I first applied I didn't have a Spanish number and had used theirs) and that I should call them back as soon as possible.

I did, and guess what? They told me they wanted to hire me!

I don't think you really can imagine my relief. Let's just say that on the bus ride to see my new room I was crying, laughing, thanking God.

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The next morning, my last at the farmhouse, I woke up and the first thought that went through my mind was, "I want to go home." Home, like America home. I haven't thought that in years. Why was I thinking it now, after getting to the other side of all the painful battles I'd gone through to survive in Spain?

I think it's because sometimes your brain protects you when you need to be strong, and doesn't let you fully feel what you're going through in the moment you're experiencing it. Now that I had gotten this relief to the extreme pressure I'd sustained for so long, my weakness came flooding back and I didn't want to fight anymore.

But I did, of course. The next day a friend helped me move to Avilés. And the day after that I headed for Germany to pick up my winter clothes.

I had 6 days before my job training would start, and I booked the cheapest route I could find, which was a flight with a 15-hour overnight layover in Lisbon (?), and coming back by bus, on the same 29-hour route I took a few months ago.

I'd forgotten how cold airports are at night, so I was pretty freezing, but slept the best I could. Also, why do chairs at airports have jagged armrests so you can't even lie down properly? Good thing I'm skinny and could slide at least half-way under.

In the morning I took a walk through the shopping area of the airport. I'd recently watched the miniseries of Middlemarch and had been wanting to read it for myself, so I prayed that if that book was anywhere in this airport, in English, God would help me find it. Well, guess what?

(still enjoying it--it's a masterpiece and you should read it)

And I even went to Starbucks and got a pumpkin spice latte, which in case you didn't know, is something American girls do in the fall. ;)

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I can't even tell you how different it felt going to Germany to visit rather than "going back" to live. If you know anything of my story, you know that Germany and I are not friends. Living there was a constant string of disasters (relieved only by a really wonderful friendship which gave me a reason to stay as long as I did), but as I sped southwards on the train from Stuttgart towards little Rottweil, I felt all this strange affection which went something like this: "Oh, Germany is so cute! How quaint!"

???

(It really is, though. When you don't have to deal with all the long-term drama. )

Even though I had 6 days to travel, I only really spent one full day in Germany, arriving on Saturday night and leaving Monday morning. After some initial panic while scrounging around in the back yard to find the key, I got into the house, retrieved my stuff from the attic, and packed what I could into my suitcase. I slept in my old bed in my old room and I slept so well.

We were mostly theater people who lived in that house, and the next morning I had a nice conversation with the new director's assistant who had just moved in. Poor child, he'll have to find out for himself how awful it is working in that theater. Maybe he'll handle it better than I did.

Then I went to church and saw everybody. Almost everybody. I had hoped to see Peter's family, but they weren't there that day.

After church I went down into the valley of Neckartal, where I'd gone every day for two years to be at the studio with Peter. I was hoping to maybe catch some of the other artists there, but no one was around because it was Sunday.

I looked into the windows of Peter's studio. It was all empty and looked like it was under some kind of construction. Stuff lying around. Dusty. Desolate. It had been the truest home I had in Germany, but I know I can't find home there anymore.

Then I walked down the forest trail I'd walked hundreds of times before. It felt strange walking there alone. I wondered why I was even doing it. Did I really still love it? Was I trying to find some kind of healing? To feel something that would make some sense?

Because I think that grief is one of the things my brain has been protecting me from, and somehow I still haven't really "gotten it" that he's gone and isn't coming back.

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So after failing to see Peter's family and the artists, I gave it one last shot and walked over to the house of some American friends in another part of the valley. They were home! We had coffee and talked. I told them the bad stuff that had happened and how it was better now. It felt good to talk, and later they invited me to dinner in the town and we talked some more.

When we said goodbye, we realized we may never see each other again. They're moving back to the States and I don't know when or if I'll make it back there. That was a bit of a shocking realization. But you never know.

I went back to the house that evening and found that my former landlady, Ulli, had just returned from her long trip to Portugal. I was so happy to see her! So glad I got the chance. A group of us sat around in the garden like a bunch of hippie bohemians talking till late and it was so nice.

The next morning Ulli took me to the train station and I started the long journey back. I have to say that I was very nervous about the traveling part of this trip. There were so many connections and I knew that if I missed even one of them, I wouldn't make it back to Avilés in time to start my new job.

But each connection that happened, and worked, made me feel a little more confident. I realized that I needed to start expecting things to go well instead of expecting them to go badly, as they had for so long.

And everything did go well, right up to the moment I arrived in Avilés and was minutes away from the final bus station. I stood up to get my jacket from the overhead shelf, and at that moment the bus braked hard and I went hurtling down the aisle, taking like four giant steps and wondering when I was going to stop. I found myself on the floor with a lot of worried faces looking down at me, asking if I was okay.

I was okay, physically, though I ached for a few days and scraped up my elbow pretty good.

But as someone who probably puts way too much stock in the idea of omens, that shook me up pretty badly. Why did everything go well until the very last minute? Was it a sign? Or just one final hurrah of the enemy and my season of bad luck?

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I started training for my new job on September12th. So what is this new job? Well, get this: I'm working at an IT service desk! Yeah, me, the girl who always considered herself something of a technophobe, who uses Apple because it's easier, who gets other people to shoot my movies for me because cameras freak me out.

I have to say that sometimes during the couple weeks of training and shadowing, I felt like Jen from The IT Crowd, who just heard white noise while Moss was explaining something technical to her. And I went into a kind of panic the first day I was at my own desk and answered my first call.

I actually rewatched The IT Crowd since I started my new job. It's such a great show and now it's even relevant to my life lol

But you know what? Every day it got a little bit easier, and I've become more comfortable. It helps a lot that the atmosphere in the company is really friendly. My team is great, and even the bosses are awesome.

Halloween decorations. Working with nerds is the best. :)

But once again with the confusing feelings... One reason I wanted this job in the first place was because some of the teams have a schedule of roughly 4-days-on-4-days-off. That would be amazing, I thought, so I could keep up with filmmaking and writing and art without having to depend on them for making a living.

As it turned out, I got hired on a more or less "regular" schedule instead, which at first was really disappointing to me (though I wasn't going to complain, so glad was I to have a job at all), but I quickly realized how difficult my weekends and evening were to handle.

I found myself overwhelmed with depression every time I had free time to think. I would get home from work, drop off my stuff, and go right back out again and walk until I was tired, then go home and watch stand-up comedy while I cooked supper, just to try and stave off the feelings.

It reminds me a lot of my first fall and winter in Malta, when I didn't know anybody yet. I was living in a dark apartment then as I am now. For the first time in my life I was actually earning a decent living, but I used to wander the promenade and ask myself, why did I ever come here?

The other day I was thinking, when you're drowning and struggling for your life, you don't have time to think about anything else--just to get air and stay afloat. Then when you get to safety, you first feel immense relief and gratitude, but then you feel upset that it happened, and angry at yourself for letting it, and scared that it will happen again, and helpless to save those who are still drowning, because you just don't have the strength.

That's kind of what it's been like, and where I still am now. I'm slowly learning not to be afraid, like whenever any of my supervisors call me into their office, my first thought is always, oh great, they're going to fire me. But then they tell me I'm doing well, and I realize I am doing well after all.

I feel very weird about money, because for the last few years I've spent as little as I possibly could, just trying to pay my bills. Now I don't have to do that, and it makes me very uncomfortable, because now I have to ask all these questions like, do I need this? Do I really want it? Should I keep being frugal so I can save and share, or should I relax a bit?

And I don't want to lose everything I worked for the last few years, when I was throwing myself full-time into the creative life. Now I get home from work and I feel mentally tired, which is why I haven't written for so long. I've kept up a bit with my hand work, but anything as complex as filmmaking is basically out of the question at the moment.

But things are looking up. A friend is coming to visit from New York over Thanksgiving week, and my sister is planning to visit for Christmas. Workmates are starting to become friends and we've hung out a few times outside of work. I found a church. And I finally met up with a filmmaker I'd been in touch with since before coming to Spain. We talked for 3 hours at a café, and I think we'll be working together in the future.

And sometimes as I walk down the street I think to myself, hey, I live here, I live in Spain. These beautiful streets are my home, and beyond them are the sea and the mountains I love so much. I'm actually here. I made it.