In my new room, a room easily four times the size of my former room in Madrid, my wake-up time is no later than 6 a.m., 7:05 a.m. if I’m lucky. Each morning, the sun plays peek-a-boo through the plastic blinds sheltering the huge window facing out into the parking lot of the apartment complex I now call home. 

It’s bare bones here, which is why I wake up every morning deathly early, much to my dismay, due to my window sans curtains. And each morning, for the past six weeks, I’ve awakened in tune with the first chirps from the birds, crust still lingering in my eyes, a familiar grogginess settling over my spirit. 

It’s too early. It’s just too early for this shit. 

If I sit up in the queen size bed, much roomier and comfier than the elongated twin sized dorm-style bed I used to sleep in, I see my suitcases, the only belongings I have to my name, lining the wall, as taxis would line the street outside of a bustling and busy airport. My clothes and shoes jut out of the suitcases, since I only have five hangers and no dresser. There’s a makeshift plastic container, the colors of Halloween, with wheels on it I’m using as a nightstand. My bras, underwear, jewelry collection and crumpled receipts lay in tribute in no particular method of organization throughout. 

And although I no longer feel like I’m here on an extended vacation, the best way I can articulate how my first few weeks in Maryland, just outside of DC, felt, I still don’t feel like I’m really…here. I feel like I’m just passing by. Just wasting time until I pass along to the next destination. Waiting to go back “home.” But only, I don’t really know where home is anymore. That definition is in a state of flux and upheaval. 

But every morning, when I wake up at 6 a.m., annoyed and frustrated that I’m up too early yet again, it becomes more real. The reality sinks in a little more each morning. 

I’m consumed with grief. All the things I lost. All the things I told myself to give up to be happier. I fought so hard to make it in Madrid. To be my own woman. To stand up on my own two feet. To hustle to make ends meet. To survive. I made that city, my experience, my own. In many ways, the complicated feelings I have for Madrid are because I found that I really did have the will the survive, to surmount struggle, to try to make it even if I was standing alone. Even if I had no one to lean on. 

I’ve traded the knowing, the longing for more, the deep-seated assurance that I was doing something wrong, going down the wrong path, dedicating myself to being wholly unhappy and unsatisfied for not knowing anything at all. For not having answers. For being chronically unsure. For feeling caught in the crosshairs of confusion. 

I’ve traded the aching of missing my family and friends and other people I adore for being near them, for being able to smell their scents, lavish in their hugs, but feeling thousands of miles of away, mentally  and emotionally. For not being able to coherently communicate this sense of isolation, wrapping my mind around explaining just how changed I feel without coming off as sounding haughty or condescending. For longing to leave just as badly. For wanting to be far away again, because it feels more comfortable, and feeling terribly ravaged with guilt for even thinking or feeling this way. 

I’ve traded my independence, my space—physically, emotionally and mentally—for being constantly bombarded with proximity to nearly everything I had finally become okay with being far away from. For having to humble myself to ask for nearly everything I need—food, money to be social, somewhere to sleep, somewhere to be able to turn a key into a doorknob. For feeling completely dependent on someone outside of myself for the simplest of things and detesting that I have to rely on the dependence, for now, to survive, to get back on my feet. 

I’ve traded genuine and lasting bonds with women who truly understood me, during a time in my life when I struggled and quite possibly the most vulnerable, a time when I shouldn’t have been open to letting others in, for more loneliness than me, an introvert who relishes in alone time, is comfortable with. For a lack of a social life in all totality. For wanting to be more social but feeling insecure because I’m not sure all that I’m feeling, all the complexities that repatriating can entail, will be understood. For looking at the lack of money I have and immediately feeling discouraged to do more than just hang around my dwelling. For turning down invites pretending I’m busy or not feeling well or stressed but instead I just don’t feel like I measure up, don’t feel like I’ll much to say or that I’ll be at all interesting. Not when I’m consumed with grief. And worry.

How does one cope with knowing they’ve made the right decision whilst juggling the nagging feeling of worry? Of not being sure that things will work out? Of watching money dwindle from the already scant bank account and consumed with how to add more to the account rather than continuing to deplete what little reserve I had? Of coping with leaving behind a life of travel and adventure and constant adjustment in a foreign land? 

I don’t know. 

But if I really did know, then perhaps I wouldn’t have even written…this.