The space of nine months, however, was too large of an expanse to have a contemplatable conclusion. I had simply leapt into an abyss, not sure if I would have enough money, not sure if I would even like Barcelona, not sure if I would make any friends. As usually happens, I was miserable until one day I was surprised to find myself in love, in love with my routine, in love with my friends, in love with my neighborhood, certainly not in love with my classes but absolutely head over heels upon imagining the prospect of having strong espresso afterward.
And now I sort of feel the same way about returning to Chicago. It's something that I have to do, something that I'm anxious to do, and yet I don't know how everything will feel as I take my first steps into familiar territory that perhaps is not so familiar anymore, or at least won't be until I've had some time to adjust.
This morning as I was having coffee, I started to think about how many of this city's peculiarities I've adopted as part of my day-to-day existence, most notably the slow pace. I think that it is this difference that has given me the most trouble. From the age of 14 I considered myself as busy as any adult, being shuttled from school to volunteering to tennis practice to play practice to home, always keeping the freezer stocked with Hot Pockets because I wasn't sure I would even have time to make a sandwich. In seven years things haven't changed much, and I think that I like the idea of being so busy that any chance to breathe is a sweet indulgence. It's a lifestyle that is often stressful and can push me into a state of existential crisis ("Why didn't I just major in Musicology?") every once in awhile, but remarkably it's always worked well for me, and having experienced a more relaxed pace I don't think I'd change it much.
I've always had the occasional impulse to escape to Denver to seek refuge in the Rockies, Illy coffee and my Mary Oliver poetry, but what is more constant is my fear of becoming complacent. I was alarmed last week when I updated my resume and found that I didn't have much to add, and it was perhaps this discovery that signaled my readiness to go home. I love Barcelona, at times to such an extent that as I walk down Cigne in Gràcia past my favorite cafés--that unspoiled corner of the world where people exist to drink coffee, read the newspaper and buy fresh produce--I almost feel like crying, devastated by the thought that I might never again drink espresso and read Mary McCarthy's Intellectual Memoirs in my favorite place to wake up in the morning.
Still, there are times when I feel as if I'm, as one friend put it, floating in a sea of insubstantiality, content but not satisfied, with no way to climb, just drifting with the current. Even the cafè amb llet in this city relaxes me, and it sometimes seems as if the force that it takes me to get moving is tantamount to the effort required to pull a truck out of a muddy ditch. Evidently, it has never been my style to live as if I'm permanently on vacation, and even if I'm miserable in the Joseph Regenstein library at 3 AM there is a part of me that relishes that sort of masochism, for I know that in the end it will yield achievement, advancement, progress. After nine months I've realized how much I miss academia, and it is with this knowledge that my return to Chicago seems less daunting and more exhilarating.
This morning, though, having coffee and a croissant after my haircut, all too happy that the bartender in the café had chosen to play without interruption the Kings of Convenience's Riot on an Empty Street (such a quiet and wonderful album), I started to tear up, upset that I would be leaving so soon but mostly tortured by the notion that nine months has been but a sliver of time.
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