Another ride on the rollercoaster – Moni

I have to confess that I’m not a big fan of summer. Then again when the sun rises on the 1st day of September, I hear the Earth, Wind & Fire tune in my ear and feel like my time has come. I enjoy this time when the world calms down a bit and the focus shifts from the outside to the inside, not to mention the combo of sweater weather and a nice cup of coffee.

This is how I welcomed this fall as well, ready for going back to work and for the 2nd half of my volunteer year. I was full of plans, energy and (maybe too) high hopes. The Spanish September was a lot slower than I expected, instead of jumping into preparing activities for the new school year, day by day it became more clear to me that most of the people are still one foot in holidays and not in the mood for conquering the world. As I told you before in general I am really trying to adjust and enjoy the easy speed but this time it just took my motivation away and made me a bit dull.

Even though I had really nice things happening around me like finally seeing Fallas – the feast valencian people are obsessed about – or discovering a cool place where they sell my 2 fav things of the world: magazines and coffee; I reached the point again when I felt stuck and wasn’t sure if I’m at the right place or even on the right way towards it. I needed some time to digest this feeling, think about the options (even quitting) and distance myself a bit. So I booked a flight to Budapest, thinking that it’s time for a short visit to the land of endless hugs with friends and family.

I was very excited to see my loved ones again but I was also nervous and tried to prepare myself for ‘reverse culture shock’. I think this is a highly underestemated feeling topped with the peer pressure that you have to be beyond happy to go back to your country, you have to have a great time there and most importantly you have to re-energize from it. But the reality is that returning home can be just as confusing as nice it is.

My tactic was to make it quick: spend there only 4 days which is not enough to get used to be back in Hungary and not enough to get unused to living in Spain. According to my plan this visit supposed to be just like a sweet dream which makes you wake up smiling and start your day happy. With this setting when I arrived back I needed one day of crying and being superconfused before feeling myself again (mas o menos) so I can just imagine how difficult it would have been to spend more time at home.

They say when you have a headache, ask someone to kick you ankle, because the new pain will distract you from the original one. Well this works with emotional troubles as well, since I’m back I feel more settled and can value more the stability of small things connected to Puerto de Sagunto such as the Chinese lady biking in front of our window at least twice a day or running into some familiar faces on the streets.