I came across a situation or more explicitly a situation came across me. I just move to Madrid, for my Erasmus, which and I quote; “will be the most amazing a memorable experience of your life”. I don’t know about amazing, but memorable…that I can understand. I would love to start writing about yet another failed attempt of me trying to establish a functional relationship with an asshole, and bitch about it, like there is nothing worse that could ever happen to me. Unfortunately, this isn’t that novel, this isn’t that story. This story is about me sitting on the verge of my balcony, watching over those few people that are still fierce and not scared of passing by their fellow-creatures.
It all started way before I came here. We were all educated and somewhat informed about this new virus, called corona that started in China in 2019. It was already the new decade when I departed in Madrid, my new and promising home for 6 months. I was so eager to experience everything that was waiting for me. It is worth to mention that I needed something great, something spectacular to happen. My last few years were, well, if I wanna put it delicately were not exactly manageable. I will elaborate some more but for now this is as much as I can let out. But just so I’d scratch that itch called curiosity: eating disorder, abusive boyfriend and relentless heart condition. And now a lethal disease is killing and infecting the world’s population and guess what I’m living in the wasp’s nest. I just keep relentlessly sitting on my balcony, trying to figure my next step out. Do I wanna give up and go home, ditch my dream of a perfect second chance or do I hold on, hoping for the best when all the results and indicators show the opposite?
You know I was just hoping for a new start, a clean slate, I guess it was just the luring promise of a luck that can be changed and altered. So far it all seems like a failed attempt, for some reason I have always been followed by unfortune, naturally things always sorted themselves out and things turned around, but first I needed to go to the deepest, grimmest pits of hell so I would find my own way back. I have never been the blind person who just goes with the flow and follows the crowd, maybe that is where I went wrong every damn time. However, it made me who I am, all my nightmares, dark and thriller movie scented “experiences” made me tougher and cleared my head for the better.
I have been scared throughout my life, not once, not twice. Still, this situation strikes me as terrifying. I wanna hold on, want to wait and see and hope that if I am strong enough to stay persistent, this situation will blow over even more rapidly. I just can’t stop but wonder, what if our world and society as we know it will start crashing down and I’m here, thousands of kilometers away from my family, by that time I will not have the opportunity to go home either because the borders can get closed any, let alone minute, second now. I gotta act fast, but I can’t hear my own thoughts. All the sirens, all the advices and voices and opinions from people that are cuddled up in their own beds at their own homes, in their own countries, just a few feet away from their families. It is easy to talk from there, I had never thought that anything bad could ever happen to me abroad. I was so unshakably confident that any foreign country is my escape. My escape from the past, from the heartbreaks, from all the people that let me down and that I’ve let down. I was firmly convinced that abroad is where I can flourish, thrive, find myself over and over again, as it had happened uncountable times before. This experience though, it was something new. I fell in love with the city, I vibed with it in a way I’ve never vibed with any city before, it was magic I won’t embellish I promise, everything about those buildings, parks, supermarkets, streets, even the subway, all of it felt like home, it felt like I have finally arrived, I’d been looking for my place in the world and I finally got the impression that I’ve stumbled upon it. However, the people, not so much. At the beginning, not at all, I found some people but they just made me feel uncomfortable, insecure and itchy in my own skin, the people I’ve found after were great, I started to set up a routine with them. And just as everything was falling into place and I thought that the stars finally lined up for me and Madrid, the virus got out of hand. All of a sudden everybody started freaking out. In the beginning it was a fairly refutable topic, not everybody seemed to see eye to eye on it. I platted my conspiracy theories way before it was a big problem, so they would be hot and fresh out of my brain’s oven by the time everybody will have become infected with the conversational part of the virus. The panic started to spiral out of control pretty easily, nothing else was needed but the Erasmus students to freak out and talk about nothing but the corona. Some, inevitably took it leisurely, didn’t care, and enjoyed the “holiday” that was given out by the Health Minister of Spain. He commended the closing of every educational institute in Madrid, which indicated that we are in the epicenter of the whole epidemic. Straight out of a movie I guess, our hero is in the most contaminated part of the world, having the alleged greatest adventure of her whole entire life. So, some of us, with actual functioning braincells got fucking freaked out while the rest of us who lack all sense of responsibility and compassion went out that exact night to celebrate the suspension of the studies. I recall being outraged, I mean there is a lethal virus spreading through the air, you can literally contaminate anyone by just ordering a beer from them, or asking for a light. When I mentioned this to them they looked at me with a dead coolness, that actually froze every feeling and living emotion in my soul, reassuring me that they will be fine because they are young and healthy, utterly and completely dismissing the fact that in this situation it isn’t ourselves that we have to look after, it’s our entire population and economies, healthcare systems…need I say more? This is what got me the most, the level of ignorance and total carelessness of my peers alarmed me to my core.
So here I was, sitting, staring, listening to the sirens, smoking one cigarette after another, watching my hands and my whole body shake out of anxiety, fear and indecisiveness. I am constantly on my phone, discussing and discussing the situation, I a week ago, give or take, referred to as, and I quote, “an overblown overreaction of the flue, that had gotten blown out of proportion”. I feel like there is no further I’ve discussed all and every detail of it, even though after I hang up the phone I feel like, nothing is discussed, there is so much more to say. I am constantly on my laptop, scrolling through articles, listening to podcasts, watching the live count. I am torn, and confused. I just wanna go home, sleep in my own bed, feel the atmosphere of my motherland. I would refuse to see anyone for at least 2 weeks, or regarding the newest updates on the incubation period. So, this is what I am constantly repeating to myself, this is the reason it would be redundant for me to go home, because I’d be alone. Just like here. And yet, every time I find myself back at this line of thought, I look around in my room. My tiny, tumbledown, rusty and ridiculously expensive, hole-like room. I am not one of those rich bitches FYI, I was perfectly happy in this room, up until this point, it really doesn’t matter where I live, until I feel safe, secure and satisfied with everything that I have going on for myself. This isn’t the case anymore, I’m frightened and cannot see that alleged light at the end of the fictional tunnel. I only see sirens, everywhere, and hear them, it does feel like the end of the fricking world, I honestly sense that I am back in those historical times, I’ve read so much about, during the wars, people sitting at home, and I find myself waiting to wake up and acknowledge that all this has been a nightmare, none of it is real. And sometimes, it does feel like one, I am on the phone talking, discussing it and I legitimately think that what I am talking about is just a movie that me and my friend on the other end of the line had just seen and we are just discussing the details of it. This is just so unreal. We have been living in this bubble, created by all the big powers, all the media and scientists, that we have reached our destination, we have managed to rule over the nature and that mankind conquered and vanquished it all, there is nothing out there that can stop us, we have invented everything and we can invent even more. We were gods up until a few weeks ago, Gods that can alter all the features on the dashboard of the world as they see fit, without any consequences or repercussion or even spin-off, what so ever.
Guess we were all right, nature is making a Macquarie out of us now, taking vengeances on all of us. As I see it, it is only fair, as cold hearted as it sounds, it’s just as bit as true. We have abused and overexploited what had been given to us, acting like gods, thinking that we can get away with anything because we have outsmarted all the rules of nature? So many signs, so many warnings have we gotten over the years, but nothing was sufficient. All the improvements, innovations and successes that mankind had achieved over the last decades, have just gotten into our heads, clouding our judgement, numbing our senses. All the huge changes that we have made over the years are nothing else but results of snap judgment, it is clearer now more than ever.
So what should one do in my situation? Run away? Back down? Give up on her dream of living in an amazing city like Madrid? My judgment might be a tiny bit clouded, but I just can’t give up my best option for a fresh start. I moved here for God’s sake, I said goodbye to every single one of my friends, for 6 months. How will I look if I just waltz back home? You know what? Scratch that, I don’t give a rat’s ass about others’ delusional and ignorant opinion. It all just seems too permanent, something that can never be renovated…and it isn’t only about the Erasmus or the semester. It is about my life as I know it, I don’t want to give it up, I need my life, I need my future. I have always been indecisive about what I want, where I want it and whom I want it with. But now I know, I want a family and love and all the regular stuff, I wanna worry about bills and schools for the kids and whether to sign them up for karate or dance practice. I want all of that, and as things are looking up at the moment, I fear that “normal life” might be something flat out different in the future. I had and frankly still have dreams and luring opportunities I would be interested in exploring, though this situation made me realize how disgustingly did I forget to acknowledge, appreciate and pursue all those amazing moments that don’t come around too darn often. I got so caught up in our fast-moving world that I forgot to actually look around and see what is genuinely important.
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