What It Was Like To Go Back to Spain After 2 Years

Author’s note: If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to read my diary, this is probably close 🙃

As you know, I lived in Madrid, Spain, from September 2018 to July 2020. And the last four months I was there coincided with the early days of the pandemic. One morning, at the beginning of March, we teachers were told that school was canceled for a week. And then, though school was scheduled to be in session through the end of June, we never went back.

Mid-March through mid-May were spent in true lockdown. We could only leave the house for trips to the grocery store or pharmacy, or to walk the dog. (Which fortunately, my roommates had.) By the middle of May, we were allowed to walk around outside, masked, during a few certain hours each day. While things were starting to turn around a bit by the end of June, it was nothing like the Spain that I had lived in and loved for the past year and a half.

All of this meant that I left Spain with a lot of complicated feelings. After these two years that had changed my life in almost every way possible, I never got the goodbye I wanted. I never got to see my students again, or many of the teachers who had been my colleagues for the past two years. I had this whole other life on the other side of the world, and suddenly it was gone.

And I was on the plane back to Kansas City from Dallas, where I’d had my layover. As the pilot announced we were preparing for our final descent, I started crying. That was it. It was all over.

A Dramatic Retelling of the Past 2 Years

The last two years weren’t much easier to cope with. When I got home, I sometimes felt isolated. I’d had this huge, life-altering experience that most other people at home couldn’t relate to. My family would even tease me any time I brought up something about Spain in conversation. “Where were you again?” (I get it, no one likes the girl who can’t stop talking about the pizza she had when she studied abroad in Rome… when her friends just asked what she wanted from Domino’s.)  But I would counter: Okay, so does that mean you’re not allowed to talk about anything that’s happened to you in the past two years?

I thought about my life in Spain and the kids at my school every. single. day. (I still do.) And there were times over the past couple of years where the feeling was unbearable. There were lots of nights where I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about everything.

How were the kids doing? How was their English? What were they learning in school? Remember when I traveled to a different country every month? Was that café in Madrid I loved still there? How was it that I was laying in this bed, 5,000 miles away, when I had once been there? Did it really happen?

Above all, it felt really unfair, the way it had ended. I know that there are a billion worse and more unfair things in the world. I know I wasn’t going to stay working as an English teacher the following school year, but I’d imagined myself staying in Spain. Living out the rest of my late 20s in the Spanish sun. Bringing Matt over with me to share my life and the European lifestyle with him.

It bothered me that the two years I’d spent there felt like it took up the same amount of space in my memory as shorter, far-less formative experiences. I was afraid that, with the passing of time, it would all keep slipping away.

When A Trip Back Finally Got Planned

By fall 2021, things were starting to look okay on the pandemic front. (Before omicron.) I started thinking seriously about planning a trip back to Spain before the end of the school year.

It needed to be before the end of this school year for one important reason: the oldest kids I’d worked with when I was there were in third grade during my first year. Now, they’re sixth graders, and about to graduate out of the school. I wanted the chance to see them again before they went their separate ways to secondary schools in the area.

As I was starting to think about my visit, I reached out to my friend, Sarah. Sarah and I worked together as language assistants at the school during my first year — she’d only stayed the one year — and I wondered whether she might want to plan a trip for the same time. She lives in Ireland and hadn’t been back to visit Spain since she’d left in 2019, so she was happy to go along, too.

Sarah is a teacher, and she had two weeks off from school for Easter. We decided to plan our trip to Madrid for April, during one of Sarah’s weeks off. (The kids at school in Spain only had one week off.) The trip over to Spain from Ireland isn’t too long, so Sarah and her boyfriend Kelan decided to spend a week in Madrid. But Matt and I decided we’d stay in Spain for two weeks to make the most of our time in Europe — planning to spend one week in Madrid and one week in Sevilla, where I want to move when the digital nomad visa finally opens up.

Sarah and I coordinated our visit with some our teacher friends at the school. And we anxiously awaited April.

Arriving in Spain After 2 Years

April arrived, and I got nervous. (Look at all those feelings I had in the first part. And those are just the ones I’m able to put into words.)

But soon we were on the plane from Chicago to Madrid. As soon as we set foot into Madrid-Barajas airport on Saturday morning, where I’d arrived countless times before, I suddenly felt like I’d never been gone at all — especially not for almost two entire years.

We hopped on the metro into the city, and it felt like just all the other times I’d taken the metro. We got off the train at metro station Bilbao, and had pan con tomate (Matt), tostadas con mantequilla y mermalada (me) and café con leche for breakfast at Café Comercial, where the waiter understood my Spanish perfectly.

Trying to stay awake after our overnight flight, we headed to my old neighborhood of Prosperidad to see what had changed. Despite the pandemic, everything was still almost the same, which made me happy. It felt like the city hadn’t moved on too much, and it made me feel like Madrid was still the same Madrid that I had lived in and loved. Like it hadn’t gone on without me. Forgotten me.

Most of the week in Madrid was spent catching up with friends and the people who’d made my time in Spain so special — not only Sarah and Kelan, but amigas we’d met teaching at the school, my friend and fellow auxiliar Ellie, and even getting a haircut from my Madrid hairdresser, Shimada.

Going Back to School

On Tuesday, it was finally time for one of our most-awaited parts of the trip: renting a car and driving an hour north of Madrid to Buitrago de Loyoza, the town where Sarah and I had taught. (We used to take the bus every day, but we decided we weren’t going to take the dreaded bus when we were supposed to be on vacation.)

Despite my nerves having mostly calmed during my first few days in Madrid, the anxiety hit again as we approached the school. Would the kids remember us? Would they even still care?

The school’s caretaker, Borja, opened the gate for us. (“Nos recuerdas?” “Si, si. Que tal todo, chicas?”) We walked into the school’s office and were met by Rafa, our bilingual program coordinator, and Edu, the principal. They told us the kids’ teachers knew we were coming, and we were free to stop in and say hello as we wanted.

One by one, we stopped in our former students’ classrooms. As expected, some kids cared more than others that we were there. Fifth grade — formerly second grade — was not impressed. To be fair, it was likely a little harder to recognize us wearing masks, especially when they hadn’t seen us for years. But sixth grade, who had had a great relationship with us as third graders thanks to their high level of English, were very excited to see us. “Do any of you have any questions for Cathy and Sarah?” their teacher asked. One kid raised his hand. “Do you like the NBA?”

Finally, I got to see the group of kids I had the closest relationship with: fourth grade, who were my “baby” first graders during year one and my sassy little amigos during year two. I hoped they might be at least a little happy to see me. (And they wouldn’t be too cool for me now.) As soon as I stepped into their classroom, they looked at me. One of them said “Eres Cathy?” (are you Cathy?) and when I said yes, they swarmed me with hugs and questions. “Are you staying?”

While they looked older — and many of the girls with glasses had gotten contact lenses at the ripe old age of 9? — they still looked like my babies. But with better English, and a little bit taller. And it made me feel good to think that I’d left an impression on them, just like they’d left such a big one on me.

After school, most of the teachers who were still around from when we’d taught at the school took us out for lunch at their favorite restaurant in town. It was so nice to see and talk to everyone — and we even learned that, since there’s no bilingual secondary school around, the sixth graders who wish to continue in the bilingual program will have the option to stay at the same school! Somehow, the existing primary school is going to convert some old classrooms and potentially build additional buildings for the kids to go to secondary school in Buitrago. Which means that if I come back for a visit, the kids will still be around. 😊

That night Matt and I spent the night in Buitrago at Maria’s house. Maria is one of the English teachers Sarah and I worked with and were the closest with. We called her our “fun aunt” and we would sometimes stay the night with her instead of going back to Madrid and back to Buitrago in the morning.

She and her husband, Floro, invited us to stay that night at her place during our visit, so Matt and I took her up on that. Maria and Floro met working as teachers in Chicago, and they lived in the U.S. for four years — so we have a lot in common with them regarding travel and perspective on life. We spent hours and hours at the dining room table talking that night, (sobremesa), and it was one of the many moments that makes me feel so fortunate that I’ve had the opportunity to create such strong relationships with such amazing people around the world.

Final Thoughts on the Whole Experience

The evening of our first night in Madrid, Matt and I took a walk around Retiro Park after our naps — a little something to help us stay awake until a more acceptable bedtime. The Retiro was more crowded than I’d ever seen it before. Walking through the main paths of the park felt more like being at Disney World than being at the Retiro I was used to. The weather was perfect and it seemed like everyone was taking the chance to spend time outside with family and friends.

Later that week, when I got my hair cut with Shimada, we had plenty of time to talk. I’d seen him first thing upon my arrival to Madrid as he was kind enough to let Matt and I store our bags in his salon until our Airbnb allowed us to check in. According to Shimada, as he worked magic on my curls, we’d chosen the perfect week to be back in Madrid for our vacation.

With the weather finally warming up after winter, low case counts, and outdoor mask mandates dropping, he said Madrid was really feeling like Madrid again. For the first time since the pandemic started. And that was an amazing thing for me to hear.

When I’d left Madrid so abruptly, all the things that made Madrid (and Spain) what it was — spending time with friends and family, besos to say hello, picnics in parks, tapas and drinks on patios — were forbidden. The Madrid I was leaving, where I wasn’t even allowed to bring a friend into the airport to say goodbye, was totally different from the Madrid I’d experienced for most of the last two years.

So, with what Shimada told me, I felt like I got to be there to help welcome Madrid back. And I was so honored to be part of that.

—

Most of all, one of the biggest things I got from the trip was something I didn’t realize I needed: closure.

Like, it makes sense now thinking about all those hard feelings I had about the way things had ended. But “closure” wasn’t really the thing I realized I was seeking. I guess I always thought of it applying more to relationships with other people rather than relationships with… a city? An experience? A chapter of life?

But I got closure. In the two months that I’ve been back, I haven’t had any nights where I couldn’t sleep. I don’t have to wonder anymore what’s going on with everyone I love over there and whether everyone and everything is moving on without me. People and places are changing, but not in an unrecognizable way.

And I learned that they’re all still going to be there, waiting for me, next time I go back.

Which is hopefully sooner rather than later. 💛

 

If you read this far, I love you.

 

Love,

Cathy

Originally Published on June 14, 2022.