Change is

scary, hard, sweet

Change is scary 

I live in Spain now. I wanted to. Blame it on epicurean fantasies of drinking cafe con leche con cigarrillos con beautiful, fabulous, chic ideas of what Europe is. Or blame it on the more respectable, and certainly genuine, goal of wanting to learn Spanish. Or blame it on my youth, ever fleeting, and the invincibility it purports to offer. Or blame it on all of the above. 

And it was all of the above that led me here. Bueno, here I am. 

I light my stove with a lighter. I get lost on my way to the park. I speak in baby Spanish. That is, Spanish as it might sound coming from the mouth of a child. I want to tell people that I am smart, and also I am funny, and also actually I am a writer as well, and so I do have quite a way with words. In English. But that would be weird in any language so I don’t. 

I learn how to roll my r’s the correct way. I wash my clothes and leave them to hang dry. I resist the urge to begin every sentence with “in New York.” 

I tell my friends I’ve found a cheat code for contentment. Construction diverts my path to the Vodafone, but it’s a Vodafone! I get yelled at for taking pictures in the Prado (did you know you can’t do that?) but the lady yells at me in Spanish! 

And then, 

I miss drying my towel in one hour instead of twenty four. I realize my r’s will probably never be perfect. And even if my accent is suitable to the Spaniards it’ll provoke laughter in the Latinos. 

I spend weeks searching for meaning. I feel a particular affinity toward random English phrases written on t-shirts and hoodies: “good things take time,” “the best way to predict the future is to make it,” “it’s not about where you go but who you meet along the way.” I take them as messages sent from the divine and meant just for me. 

I second guess my decisions. I wonder, was it my destiny to be an artist in New York for the rest of my life? Was it ill advised to up and leave in the middle of one of the most transformative years of my life? Was it ignorant to not think of it as such, at the time? Can perspective only be born of distance and time? 

What if I said that I’ve been missing home since I left? What if I said that I miss my mom, and I miss my childhood bedroom, and I want nothing more than to curl up in the familiar embrace of Brooklyn? What if I went back?

Change is hard 

If I said that I’d be lying. There is a singular joy that comes with novelty. Everything is wonderful because everything is new. And it is. 

Except, 

I should be more excited. I should better recognize my privilege. I should capture the spirit of delight in the mundane, because even buying a cutting board is an event (I speak to the cashier in Spanish), and everything is so cheap here! (is it better when the euro or the dollar is stronger?) (what does that even mean?). 

Melancholia creeps up on me. Weighed down with the endless force of languor, the outside intimidates. Wherever you go there you are, dear Bellave, and leaving the country for a new one doesn’t mean that any of your dusty old baggage automatically disappears upon ascent. 

Can’t I be content to let things happen as they happen? Or would it be better to be an active participant in the life that takes shape around me? 

Change is healthy, I tell myself. It is far too easy to sink into old patterns. You’ve grown so used to your comforts. Who can blame you? Old habits die hard. Young people revert back to old ways. A change of scenery won’t change a soul. 

Change is uncomfortable. I’ve gotta confront these things - these things that I don’t know if I’ll ever fully know how to live without - head on. Or else nothing will get dealt with. And nowhere else to go but to stay. Or to change with it. Move with the roll of the tide, feel it wash over your body and change you too. 

Good and bad are binary; can’t change be neutral, sometimes? Some things are good, some things are bad, and other things just are. The vast majority of our experiences can’t be labeled into little boxes, put into the filing cabinet of our lives labeled in any certain way, under any kind of privately developed nomenclature. 

We are human. We are only human. And humans are only multifaceted, multi-layered, multi-nuanced people with experiences that abound and grow on top of one another and another until the end of your life. 

And I am me. And I am the outside most version on top of a Russian doll of selves whose past peoples I could not be further from. Still, here she is. She’s still here too. 

What can be attributed to growing pains might be the physical feeling of my lifeforce. Or my soulforce. It expands or grows (or whatever word you want to carefully choose to use) because even if your life has an expiration date, your soul and your spirit are boundless and infinite. At least that’s what I’d like to believe. Memento vivere. 

Maybe you change because it’s inevitable, or you change because you need to; I’m challenged with a thousand obstacles a day, just for my existence as a person; and I need to communicate in a language that I have a limited knowledge of; and I don’t like ham. 

Maybe I change because that’s all there’s left for me to do. 

I like to say that life is defined by its ebbs and flows; its ups and downs. Sometimes things feel awesome. Sometimes they’re terrible. Most of the time, they just are. Most of the time they’re in transition. I could be at the bottom of the upward track. I could be at the highest high before the next drop. People ride roller coasters because the adrenaline is fun. Right? Right, right. 

I guess, you can only ever know how something will go until it’s gone. So I’ll have to go ahead. So I went. 

Change is sweet

And then one morning, I hear someone say something and I understand what they’ve said. 

I walk, I run, I ruminate. 

I go to a concert, I go to the park. I go out. 

I stop drinking.

I order a drink. 

I watch movies, I meet people, I eat, I laugh, I listen. 

I talk and talk and talk and talk and then one morning, I feel good. 

I’ve found my favorite bar. I’m looking for my favorite restaurant. I walk around my favorite neighborhood. I wear my grandfather’s shirt and I cry. I breathe, I steady myself, I think I’ve matured.

I change. 

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