Lost Notes From Spain - My last day.

I've reached my last day in Spain. I am ready to come home. Whatever my reasons for coming here, I am leaving with a sense of contentment and of completion.

I didn't realize how bad it was. Before I left I was... Pain. I couldn't stop hurting and I didn't know why. I didn't even fully recognize that I was suffering. But I was sitting on the train yesterday and I did notice something; the absence of that pain. It was if it had manifest itself as this coiled copper ball of energy, electrically snapping at the bit with my silent anguish. But this tightly wound expression of what I had been living with daily was no longer inside me, no longer sapping my strength and personality.

I glanced at the table in front of me - as the sun streamed in, the lanscape shooting past while I jostled gently in my seat with the movement of the train - and I saw it there, in the middle of the table, flickering weakly.

I laughed softly to myself, intrigued by the mental image I had conjured, and thought, I think I may just 'forget' you there.

For the rest of that train ride I had a secret smile continuously playing across my lips. I truly felt lighter, and for the first time in many months, years even, I felt genuinely happy; right down to my core.

It took an entire month away. Filled with a hodgepodge mess of confusion, happiness, loneliness and fatigue. I felt fear, moments of peace and discovery, joy, and yet an overwhelming sense of being lost. But somehow I got what I came for - two day's before the end of my trip, cut right to the wire - but I got it. And it has all been worth it. I picked up something new here, something glowing and bright, and I think I'll place it where that pain used to be, tucked up safely inside, and take it home with me.

It is time to go home.

05.18.11
Madrid, Spain.