And The Rest Of The World

Sunny Sun Side Up

I had arrived in Spain a week ago. Before that, I had been living at my friend Julia's house for two weeks, ever since I'd completely moved out of the flat I'd shared with my mum. I spent the four months before that doing paperwork and packing.

It had been six months since my mum died.

I had spend the last five of those months in sheer exhaustion. And that first month is a blur.

It had been the most pain I had ever felt, this mix of overwhelming grief, pure ache and worst of all, relief. Such an odd thing to have spent most of your life fearing something, trying to prevent it, and for it to finally happen. Such a weird sensation of numbness, that, instead of blurring the pain, makes it worst. Makes it impossible to close your eyes and think of something else for a second.

One week in Spain.

One week of sun, one week of the promised land, one week of the dream finally becoming true. And all I wanted to do is hide under my bed and wait until something got me out.

One crazily filled week with no time to face alone except for nighttime. Despite the exhaustion that made me feel like I could disappear into a pile of dust any minute, I realise now what a small blessing it has been. Now that I'm alone.
Indeed, even though being with people had been thoroughly tiring, it was always better than being alone. Especially since being far away from home and any people aware of...the recent events had made it much easier to pretend everything was fine and thus socialise (also trying to understand anything with the speed with which people spoke here was a real challenge which I was more than happy to keep myself occupied with).

As such, this first week had overall been better than the previous months since I had either been at work or at my new living place. Living place that I shared with Louis (for this past week at least), who hadn't really left me much time to be alone with my thoughts. To be sure the old man had a lot of things to say about how to take care of his flat and his cats.

Louis was a fairly economically comfortable man who basically spent his time going around the world on boat tours while chasing different mistresses - which I now know each by name and  character even though the number is in the double digits - and needed someone to take care of his cats and keep the place "alive" in exchange for a very low rent. It was actually crazy. I had gone through an agency that puts in contact people like me and Louis so I was bound to find something but I still find it odd I got such a good contract - that's to say that I'm pretty sure Sarah had had something to do with it.

I had actually signed up to the agency two years ago (when I had originally planned to come to Spain) and when things hadn't worked out, I actually liked the concept so much that I ended up doing secretary work for the company for a bit. And had met Sarah, who basically worked as my manager. She had called me two months ago, when she saw my name in a list of applicants. And I had lied to her when asked why I was suddenly able to leave. I didn't need another person telling me that I shouldn't be so far away from anyone that I know in this difficult time. I didn't need another person knowing. I wished nobody knew.

Anyways. I'm pretty sure Sarah found me this treasure. I almost feel bad for Louis, he wanted a young lively person to keep the energies of his flat alive and he got me.

I hope the cats won't get depressed.

Although it's supposedly good to get a cat  for someone that's depressed, so that they have something to live for. I heard that as a child and had than thought that adopting one of the stray kittens that a friend's parents had found would be a wonderful idea. My mum had been...angry. Very angry.

I dragged in a puff of my cigarette. I don't like smoking. I tried smoking for a year when my associations were less desirable, it never caught on. I suppose I'm lucky, although it didn't used to feel like it, at fifteen not understanding why I wanted to vomit while everyone looked cool.