Reverse culture shock and mid-age crisis mix-up.

I was back in Madrid. So dry cold in winter and, so hot, and dry, and dusty, in summer.

I thought it would be a good idea to come back. We used to come for our holidays and, I love it here. We thought life would be easier than in London: busy city, cloudy skies and, so competitive in all levels. I thought it was about time to come back, after 15 years abroad.

So we made a list of reasons to stay and reasons to leave London and go to Madrid for good. The reasons were all there, screaming to us that it was such a good idea, that it was not wise to bet on London for a longer term. We were excited with the idea and, I was very naïve to think it would be the best timing ever, the best cut in my life, a fresh start in my forties.

How many times I felt so stupid thinking about that little sentence. A fresh start, clean cut to my new decade. I was convinced of that and, furthermore, my idea inspired other friends, in similar situation to us.

But my clean cut was way too clean. I mean, it was like being back to basics when you are just in the epicentre of your adult life. It left me totally disorientated. Like a teenager: sad, moody, not being able to enjoy the good side of the deal, and not even knowing who I was any more. And that was a huge problem. 

I was a Londoner. So cool as it sounds. I know I fit in there. Most likely because, everyone fits in London. It’s such a mix, there is room for everybody and, you feel close to your friends and all those people that, although they don’t share with you the nationality, they share something as powerful: the will of leaving things behind. The adventure trips with no return tickets, the embrace of the unknown. The awareness that a big world is laying out there and it would be so sad, so poor and so little minded not going there and check it out. For your own interest, for your own right.

For many of us, travelling with a return ticket, it’s not enough. You need to stay to experience it properly. Holidays only makes you feel, see, taste, listen, smell but, it usually don’t involve experiencing the country, because that comes with interaction with locals. And real interaction with locals being a tourist, it’s almost impossible.

And the good think, as a Londoner, is that, you have all those cultures there, right next to your door, and the interactions flows with all sorts of people from all sorts of different spots of planet Earth.

And with all that in my mind, after actually living in four different countries with four different languages, I landed back to the first one and, it made look like all those years were a dream to me. Never happen. End of adventure and, are you sure you really were there, sweetheart?  

I was craving for my daily dose of learning. Something that naturally happened while I was living in UK where, I was constantly being spoiled with awesome experiences that make your mind explode with possibilities. One of my favourites was attending a Christian protestant gay church, with a post office inside, and a coffee shop, just to enjoy my coffee while my son played with other kids in ball pool and climbing frame area.  All this, inside the amazing brick high ceiling church, with its altar, showing proudly a rainbow Christmas tree during the festive season, its little corners with the candles to light up with your prayers and, nicely hanging an amazing rainbow flag at the top of its main tower.

And seriously... Why not? Why we need to be one thing or the other? Why we need to take positions? When we are sincere with ourselves, we know we all have all those layers, that made us unique, and different and hence, it is so silly to pretend to be so identically cut, just to have the impression that we belong to something.

So much easier to feel the belonging if we accept how deeply different, complicated and even inconsistent, as human beings we are, with all our shades of different colours. And how big is the moment when one understands that even, if you believe to be someone, you can evolve into someone else, accepting a bit that little voice inside that tells you a few truths and, that we like to make silent.

And that little voice was driving me crazy. This is something I just learnt, the little voice inside you when you turn 40, screams! It so powerful. It drives you crazy because it’s being inside you long time, knows you well and, it perfectly knows what it wants now.

So, in my case, it was like having a child in denial. My guts screaming:  “Hold on one second, what happened in here? Where is my discovery of the day? Where are my friends? Where is the green countryside? Where the fuck I am now and how, again, did I end up here?

It took more than one year to start being able to answer all those questions.

It took months to start to believe who I was.

It took so much longer to stop craving for all that yummy, comfort food that fills the menus of a good pub in London. I was so desperate for the food that the only things I bought for myself -as a farewell present- were eight (eight!) cooking books and two beautiful, (UK designed and made) umbrellas to cheer me up in rainy days in Madrid. Nothing else.

I always say, I truly fall in love with places. Same way I may fall in love with people. When it’s the right place for me, I feel uplifted, light, happy, and full. Somehow, I feel calm and proud. In a way, it belongs to me, as I belong to it, and that makes me feel proud of the place and our connection. When I am in love with my surroundings, I don’t need much more. Precisely, as when you are so rotten in love, you don’t need anyone else in your life. Just that love. Well, I’ve been in love with two places, although I must admit, I have crashed with a few more, light slings. But the two places I fell for, with no parachute, were London and, a few years earlier, Siena.

I left London broken hearted, so close to tears, they were easily pouring down my cheeks in most unexpected situations: horrible thai food made me cry, realising September was round the corner and this time there was no ticket back home for me too. 

September is still very hard on me. 

"La famiglia"

“La famiglia” is the issue number one.

You live happily abroad. I used to say that Madrid is not too far from London to miss properly Spain. We used to come back for our holidays, constantly taking planes either to Madrid or Malaga, catching up with family and friends. At the end of the vacation, we flew away, reconnecting with our life back home.

You enjoyed the weather, the food, the family but somehow, leaving all that behind feels good as well. Great big families can be demanding, intrusive and of course, there are always misunderstandings. Feels good coming back home and discuss all those with your other friends, who absolutely take your part and understand you, and usually they’ve been as well already on those.

I must say, the only moment that you miss greatly not being home is when something happens and you are not there to help, to comfort or to say farewell to relatives gone. To keep company and to stick together. It hurts greatly because you are sad as well, but isolated with the grief and, worse, you feel really guilty about not being around, when needed.

At the beginning of your stay abroad, it is difficult too not being part of the family’s daily celebrations, like birthdays, etc, or being the last one to know what's going on over there. But year, after year, you finally accept the fact that you are an outsider and, it is just on those hard moments that, you miss being where you should.

More than a decade later, you decide to come back and, you expect being the centre of the universe. You are finally back! After all those years!!!! You expect loads of attention and catching up. But no, if enough time has passed, actually you would be precisely what you were the minute before landing: a wandering satellite. A very independent one. And again, let’s say, this doesn’t help to reconnect with your family, either.

It’s a bit crazy because you probably have been growing listening your parents say that you have to be independent and self-sufficient, and you mastered it. You are the most independent and self-sufficient person over the face of the world, but actually your folks would like you better if you need them. Much better. For anything. I kind of learned, not needing them, in fact, hurts them. This one really takes time to realise.

There are more things to learn, other surprises waiting: You actually soon will discover that your family has evolved, maybe it has many more members than when you left, and all them have found their place in the new system and you, the foreign member, are not where you dreamily thought. Actually, your place is taken. Like that.

You are not any more the only daughter, your kids are not any more the only grandchildren, the family routine is totally different, and somehow your family is struggling because your pack of five is actually too big in the three generations meals, already crowded.

If  your family hasn’t grown yet, and hence, you still have your space waiting for you, don’t relax because there is still one more challenge.

So, do you remember how, as a new couple, you struggle to find the way it works actually for both of you, in so many things? The first moments of living together are only endured because you are sooo in love that everything seems easier, but it’s not. You need to create “on the go” a new routine about how to deal with so many aspects of your daily life, that for some strange reason, were not done in a similar way in his or her house. Psychologists joke that a marriage is a battleground in which two families send their best warriors to determine which family’s culture will direct the couple’s life.

Keep that in mind, and send that couple abroad, maybe to one or two different countries, that of course, have changed and reshaped many things through the years. Now, put back those warriors to their families who, are literally horrified because, can’t recognise much on them. Neither team 1 or team 2. You actually do everything differently. 

For you, those changes are a beautiful result of your experiences, a richer life and many challenges assumed and overcome, but for your family members is just weird stuff you do, because a) you are weird, b) you are showing off how British you became and how little Spanish you are now c) you just do it to annoy others around.

You crave for empathy but, is actually a distrust what you get. And hence, you need to start building from there.

Don’t think that’s all, there is something else waiting for you there: You are back and you have become someone’s child again. This would mean that, they may told you off, and yes! sometimes they do. So, if you were expecting parents telling how proud they are of your achievements, how well you have been doing and, that they are amazed about all the challenges you faced beautifully. Wait there. For the rest of your life. They are actually prouder of the kids that stayed close to them. The closer, the better. Instead, they will come to tell you when you don’t fulfil their expectations.

I am not sure if it’s a good idea to fill you with some examples here, because, what if they read this entry???? but, I am so sure most of these are a classical when you are back, so we need to set at least three iconic examples:

1. "We used to see you more often when you were abroad” This one maybe is at the same level of the epic “this house is not a hotel” that you heard when you were in your late teens or twenties.  I guess this is a classic for the European Expat, usually checking in on holidays and expending all their free time and attention with their family.  Now everyone is disappointed because day to day life is more demanding, there is no much free time, and even, maybe your holidays are spent abroad, in the country you just left, to visit those friends and that part of your life.  No one wins here, I am telling you this.

·       2. Why you don’t work anymore? Are you looking? You need to find a job! (Hey come on, not that I’m asking you for money or anything!) Great pressure when you are in the middle of a mid-life crisis too!

·      3. Why your husband is always working?  The Londoner work-style is a different league. If you don’t show up in weekends, saying that you are actually working, no one will believe you. At least here, it would sound as a pathetic excuse to avoid commitment, miss meals and not turning up.

Of course the rest of their time, your beloved progenitors will actually be telling friends, neighbours and relatives and, almost everyone around, how happy they are that you are back!!!

Come on! They could lie to you too!!! 

Love for writing

Love for writing is packing an old Olivetti, making your suitcase insanely heavy to carry, but not being able to picture yourself, without its company, even during your holidays. Not wanting to renounce to the rhythmical lullaby of its keys, rocking your thoughts as you write. Or, the peaceful moment when you stop typing, actually kind of putting yourself on pause, and let your hands change automatically the filled page for a bright clear one, inviting again some more words in.

It couldn’t be a really good holiday if you can not sneak to write, leaving your family and your delightful grandnieces enjoying the pool and, finding those moments to sit by yourself in the terrace, with the sea at the background, and the house quiet. And then, in that perfect moment of calmness, let your imagination fly away but, actually, you end up grabbing it, to avoid getting it lost. Making your thoughts prisoners to the paper, but finding the way to present them in the most accurate, yet beautiful way, so they become more real: transitioning from your imagination to become a story.

I met the 80 year old gentleman this summer, but it was his daughter who told me about the typewriter journey from Rome to Malaga, packed as a child would take his teddy bear, to keep him company. And I could understand the man and, at the same time, I felt deeply moved by the story because, it is the same love that makes you pick just one pencil in an exquisitely displayed museum shop. It attracts you because you can picture yourself using it against some paper, leaving its traces behind, making words just look pretty, 2D plain monochromatic beauty. And you find that gracefully designed pencil so inspiring to help you connecting your brain with your hand, noticing the flow through your arm to its solid wood and, hearing the murmur of its tip, scratching slightly the paper.

Or the same love that wakes you in the middle of the night, to switch your computer on and type the story you need to tell before its momentum falls away and, you lose forever your idea, its strength and whatever thought inspired it.  And you can not stand that your story, slippery as a fish, may go forever to the kingdom of thoughts without you being able to bring it to this world, in a material, perceptive way that, at least for you, makes it more real.

Let It Be or Let It Go?

I am a big fan of the Beatles, I loved their songs since I am a teenager. I felt super lucky to live at walking distance to their famous studios in St. Johns Wood, having done thousands of times the iconic crossing at Abbey Road, either by car, waiting for the tourist to mimic the legendary picture or walking it, thinking that one day, I should be doing it myself. Somehow being that close, the crossing felt a bit mine.

At the beginning of my Teen Years, I learned by heart many of their songs, but it was “Yesterday” the one that made me vibrate. I used to sing it everywhere, karaoke, piano-bar or just in the middle of a busy street on top of a bench. Making a terrible figure of myself but, still not caring for a single moment what other people would think and, giving the most of myself in its performance. I must say I was a dreadful singer, but very enthusiastic! That one was the one and only song I ever sang in public.

Last evening my son was doing his homework. He had to listen “Let It Be” to analyse its instrumental music and some other facts about the song. He played it in my phone, full volume and so, we all could hear it. Suddenly, my other son, aged four, decided to sing along “Let It Go” instead, as a kind of war competition trying to be louder than the Beatles and, make the Frozen’s song win.

I was amused that he made the connection, because it just made me realise that both songs titles were so close in a way, with the same structure, cadence and, sharing two words out of three, even, two syllables out of three!  Both were holding a sharp, meaningful message, addressed for moments of trouble but, the similarities stop here, because their meaning is a very different action, sometimes even opposite.

In a more reflective line, I believe that actually both “let it be” and “let it go” were necessary in everyone’s life, like a dualism. It is crucial that you get the best balance between them. The war my little one was playing, it is actually a war we all play in our lives, especially in moments that we have to face change, maybe unexpected, unwanted or, just dramatic change.

I mean, if you think about it, this balance is being played constantly in our lives, but it’s done in a natural way, somehow unconsciously, as we grow and mature. It’s in those difficult moments of change when, finding the right proportion between both it's decisive, although this time, it takes a harder work, it’s quite demanding and yet essential to be able to move to the next step.

-“Which next step?” –you may ask.

It’s not over when you find your balance, you still need another song. This one is not as famous as the others but, it comes from one of our favourite movies, quite inspirational,  passing a clear message to educate kids –and adults- to be environmentally responsible: The Lorax (book available too!).

It was again my oldest who brought it over, last night, after playing the two songs and discussing a bit our taste in music for a while (little one defending firmly “Let it go” as a winner!).

-“Mummy, there is another one of these!”

And he hit it here –nice song-:

Yeah, of course, Let it grow!

“Let it grow, let it grow, you can’t reap what you don’t sow…” 

Eton Mess

Eton Mess is a classical.

A traditional English summer dessert, consisting of a mixture of strawberries, broken meringue and whipped cream. Utterly delicious. It is commonly believed it was originated at Eton’s dining tables more than one century ago.

Since last summer, you may find this dessert renamed to “Brexit” in menus around England. Making honour to the famous, acid and sharp British humour, many restaurants changed the pudding’s name, because most of the politicians involved in the Brexit chaos attended such prestigious school.

I am telling all this because, two years ago, when I was trying to figure out what to do with my life in Madrid, I thought the best idea would be working for the British Embassy. It really made a lot of sense to keep as close as possible to the country that hosted me for years, -reshaping myself in many ways- and, in a bigger scale, keeping in touch with the international community.

I was proudly holding a British passport, brand new and recently issued, and that was the main requirement to apply for a vacancy. Hence, I joined their data base and I was usually sent emails with the new vacancies available. 

A few months later, a very special job offer description was sent to me. This was back in February 2018, before witnessing again and again what a failure the whole Brexit process is been from the beginning till our days.

I can not be more thankful to the Gods, appreciate more that the planets didn’t align for me on this one, or that the universe had a different path, because I put all my efforts to be hired as a Brexit negotiator with the Spanish authorities!

Yes, I know.

I always considered myself very lucky and I couldn’t understand what was going on! Why I was not getting away with it this time, why they were not calling me back??? I thought it was a role made just for me: fluent in both languages, legal background, many years of experience as a lawyer, and a person with the true interest to seek for the best result! And I couldn’t believe the hiring people were not seeing that it mas ME who they needed.

Now I look backwards and I see. With the perspective that time gives us, is easy to get the accurate picture. Still, I can understand how difficult sometimes is to make the right move when your vision is blurry. I really feel moved by my old me acting childishly on denial, being reluctant to close the chapter and let go. It’s not so easy to accept the closure and move on. It takes a lot of maturity and guts, because it involves a very painful loss.

And then, I can imagine my life if I would have got the job. A desperate, uncertain and precarious  role at the Embassy, trying to figure out what to do, how to negotiate Brexit when Brexit doesn’t exist, no one knows what it means, no proposal so far been supported by the Parliament. It’s the XXI century chaos and I’d have been working for it!

Disaster!

Further, how do you introduce yourself for any other position, trying to move to another job after the fiasco, explaining that last dark line on your C.V.? Or worse, socially at parties: when someone asks you –“So, what do you do?” And you answer: -“I have the right to remain in silence.”

I know myself and I would be snoozing my morning alarm forever. After all, I must admit, I was being very lucky!!!

Finchley Road

Not sure if you ever set a foot on that street. Busy, dark, heavy traffic, old shops, a bit doggy... First time I was there, I found it dreadful. And, although it has improved a lot in the last years, it is not really a nice street, let’s admit it. But, somehow and without realising, I got to love it.

Maybe it was the fact that I had to cross it daily on my way from home to school or, because my favourite supermarket was located there, or perhaps it was the fact that I found there too a Sicilian bakery -with the best brioches ever-, or a French-Japanese patisserie, with cakes to die for. 

I loved all those places and I treasure as well many memories of my kids crossing the road in the mornings, usually involving some drama. I can still recall lots of afternoons, coming back home, kids sometimes happy, sometimes quite tired, sometimes just hungry. Further, we have crossed it in all sorts of weather, from sunny to pouring, in the middle of winter snowstorms and, we have being treated too with dramatically colourful sunsets over the domes of South Hampstead's Mansion Houses. 

Step by step, day by day, I was getting close to this street, without being aware.

Two summers ago, we left for good, and the next autumn, we came back again for our first visit in town. I was at the crossing of Goldhurst Terrace with Finchley Road, surrounded by people speaking different native languages and, I suddenly felt so deeply how much I was missing living in London. I longed for the international atmosphere, the diversity, and even the doggy, dark and busy Finchley Road.

I met later my friends and I told them:

-“I must be doing very bad, because, you know what? I felt so nostalgic at Finchley Road”. 

They were laughing, and me too. It felt ridiculously silly, but it couldn’t be more true.

I know it’s quite puerile, it didn't stroke me as hard in other moments, such us looking again at any of my favourite highlights -the Big Ben, or Tower Bridge-, or enjoying the Heath, or dreaming about the open green countryside and the beautiful lavender fields. 

It was Finchley Road that made me feel so homesick. 

The British Pub

I remember surfing in the internet looking for menus, going through them and salivating with their dishes.

I remember discovering Sticky Toffee Pudding, after ignoring the dessert for years, since it sounded too naughty.

I remember discovering Bread and Butter Pudding, after ignoring the dessert for years, since it sounded too plain. (I got obsessed with this one!)

I remember trying for the first time Strawberries and Meringue, and believing it was the best combination ever.

I remember my first roasted duck.

I remember going to the channel to enjoy the battered Fish and Chips, but actually truly appreciating the mushy peas and being certain it would be my favourite mash ever.

I remember my first Sunday Roast, with its Yorkshire pudding, the runny meat and lovely steamed veggies with the gravy and, the horseradish sauce, so spicy it tickles your nose.

I remember snuggle up around a rich vegetable soup, a comforting Chicken Pot Pie or anything that actually would fill me up, rich and steamy.

I remember those yummy hamburgers -in the best brioche bun you may think of-, being just the bread itself a path to heaven.

I remember meeting with my office colleagues to enjoy the Friday Fish and Chips around a big table.

I remember sipping my tea (or red!), being hypnotised by the flames in the fireplace during winters, or drinking Pimm’s in the middle of a freshly blossoming spring, celebrating longer days, milder temperatures and, of course, at last, the sunshine.

I remember spending hours chatting while kids running on the gardens, in any spot of England. City or countryside. Asphalt or fields.

I remember our last trip to Cotswolds, our last lunch with friends, enjoying a nice roast, while kids were un-tidying books or trying the table games, and feeling the revelation of  what I should be totally doing once I would be back in Madrid:

Of course, we need the Pub.

The breakfast and brunches, the teas and dinners, the long lunches.

The Pub mania was with me for months, dreaming awake to have my own place to taste all those flavours so much loved and missed.