My Bubble

I forgot my Mom's birthday. What's worse is that while it was her birthday, I was thousands of kilometres away celebrating my neighbours' birthdays. Three weeks later, I finally sent her a card and a video greeting.

In school, students asked about the welfare of my family in the Philippines. My response: “...uh, what typhoon?” You see, I don't watch the news. I can't understand the rapid Spanish anyway. And because no one in my immediate family was affected, I never received a message from my parents.

When I was living in Canada, I was obsessed with keeping up with the latest fashion and beauty trends. Here, I feel dressed up on days when I'm NOT wearing my running shoes. I had forgotten about my appearance until I arrived at the bar one evening, and a Madrid friend asked “Uh, you're going to change before we go out to the pub, right?” Even after he said that, for a few minutes I thought there was nothing wrong with my hand-me-down knitted cardigan, wrinkled shirt, messy hair, and – you guessed it – running shoes. 

I'm pretty sure my Canadian friends want to kill me right now.

In my pueblo, it's easy for me to forget the outside world that is revolving at dizzying speed, while here I amble slowly to work, only use the internet when I'm near Wi-Fi, refuse to mark papers while I enjoy a three-course lunch, and follow the stores' siesta time when they all close at 2 p.m. for a few hours. I stop while I walk to work to marvel at the way the sun's setting light is shadowing the Sierra's crevices. I feel at peace as I walk home alone at night, pausing to admire stars that I could never see in the city. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm not living in reality, like I'm on a perma-vacation. There still exists a pressure inside of me to climb the corporate ladder, keep up with trends, hurry up and get a boyfriend, move fast, fast, fast. At times, this voice yells LOUDLY inside of me. But 99% of the time, it's non-existent. Moving to the pueblo quieted the internal critic.