I hadn’t checked the countdown on my phone in weeks. I didn’t need to anymore, because I knew the little gray boxes labeled “WEEKS,” “DAYS,” “HOURS,” “MINUTES,” and “SECONDS” all had tiny white zeros.
I’d started the countdown almost as soon as I’d come to Spain, back when I sat in bed and stared at pictures of my friends while listening to “See You Again” on repeat and thought please let this be over quickly.
Now I’m afraid that I won’t be able to fall asleep without the sounds of Spanish television from across the hall. I’m afraid that whenever it’s 2:00pm, no matter where I am in the world, I’ll hear Victoria calling “A comer!” from the kitchen, and I’ll remember sitting at a round table with a tablecloth thick enough to be a blanket while she hands me a spoon for my lentil soup. And whenever I don’t have time for lunch and stuff half a peanut-butter sandwich in my mouth, I’ll hear her saying “Es muy poco!” and pushing an overflowing bowl of fruit at me.
Victoria is 77 years old. I know I want to come back to Spain someday, but I don’t have any immediate plans (or money) to come back soon. And it’s possible that by the time I get around to coming back, she’ll be gone.
Salamanca from the Huerto de Calisto y Melibea
I’ve said a lot of goodbyes in my life. Sometimes it seems like whenever I teach myself how to be happy in a new place, I run away. I left my family and high school friends in Massachusetts, started from scratch in Atlanta, and just when I figured out how to be happy again, I got on a plane to Madrid.
I’ve learned that my happiness doesn’t come from other people, but is something I take with me and can rediscover no matter what continent I’m in or what language I have to speak. I’ve learned that goodbyes are necessary, because if I’d never said goodbye to my friends last spring, I never would have met Victoria. But for all the practice I’ve had, saying goodbye never gets easier.
Whenever I get too caught up in the “last” time I’ll ever experience something, I think about a passage from my favorite book, Einstein’s Dreams. Every chapter is a different theory about time and all the different ways it might stretch and implode. My favorite chapter imagines a world in which “time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly.”
It describes a woman who gives her dying husband one last kiss:
“She is certain that this was the last kiss. How could she know that time will begin again, that she will be born again, will study at the gymnasium again, will show her paintings at the gallery in Zürich, will again meet her husband in the small library in Fribourg, will again go sailing with him in Thun Lake on a warm day in July… How could she know?”
I think about this passage whenever another “last time” falls on my shoulders. I find it more comforting than any religion I’ve ever practiced or read about – the idea that there is never a “last” time, that there’s no end to your life and no need to mourn the things that are lost because eventually you’ll find them again.
The idea that when I wave goodbye to Victoria from the bus, I don’t need to be sad because one day in August we’ll meet for the first time again. She’ll be waiting for me on Fonseca street, then we’ll take the #4 bus back to her apartment. She’ll take me to my room with two tiny beds, then leave me to unpack while she makes paella for lunch.
I’ll ride my bike in the rain again, take salsa lessons again, get lost in the gardens of a Moorish palace again, look down at the Guadalquivir river from a ferris wheel again, and finally come back home again to eat seafood soup with Victoria. And just like every night, she’ll say “A pasar buenas noches” as she stands at the sink washing dishes, and I’ll say “Hasta mañana.” See you tomorrow.
