After having decided short notice that I was going to add Morocco to my ever growing list, I began to move South down the Eastern coast of Spain. All I wanted was beach, beach, and more beach! What I got was another story. The rain had somehow managed to board the plane in London undetected and do what it does best, all over my parade. But I kept my head held high, and kept moving on. That is until I took a look at my bank account...It was finally time for me to confront my severely beaten savings account. This trip to Spain had been decided on a mere whim adn without a payment plan. Affording Morocco on top of it was next to impossible. Rather than book a plane ticket back to Ireland the next day, I began to Google possible job prospects. I spent hours applying to all sorts of jobs, most of which I was highly under qualified for. But I let my paranoia of returning to Canada as a hobo and the carpal tunnel that had set up camp in my left wrist get the best of me. The only people replying to my desperate emails were creepy British men. I was screwed.
To clear my head I went for a walk through the city. I knew this little walk around the park would be the only chance I would have to tour Valencia as my bus down to Cabo de Gata left the next day. So I set off to explore the city's centralized park. Just as the sun began to lower along the horizon, I found myself distracted by a man who appeared to be walking on air. I stepped closer, obviously intriged, and stared in amazement as this sweaty, crazy haired man, who later became known as Jose, bobbed along some sort of bouncy rope. He was a gymnast, a tight rope walker, a circus performer, and I was his audience. After his little show concluded, he turned my way, having already noticed my gawking stares and beckoned me closer. Let me stop right there and say that in any other situation where I've found myself in a park at night in a new city I wouldn't willingly star I knew it Mark was having a go at the slack line (as it is more professionally known) and I was sitting on the grass with Jose. His English wasn't by any means fluent (it beat me trying to speak Spanish), but a smile thrown in between each mispronounced word kept us on the right track. When I asked Jose why he spent so much of his time slack lining he told me, in his warm Spanish accent, that it taught him about himself. The challenge was never being able to walk along a suspended rope, but rather in trusting yourself not to give up. Jose said that in order to be successful at this, you had to have faith in yourself.
So I jumped up, accepted the gauntlet that was placed before me, and tried so friggin' hard to get up on that rope. After half a dozen badly executed tries I managed to wobble my way into a semi standing position. My torso remained rigid and unmoving while my feet, staggered one behind the other, shook violently from side to side. Unable to keep up with trembling rope beneath me, I tumbled awkwardly to the ground in defeat. Mark and Jose watched from their resting places on the grass as I stood up, brushed myself off, and then fumbled my way once again onto the rope. Just as my legs began to shudder beneath me, I head that warm Spanish voice call out, "trust yourself." So I took that ever prolonged breath and waited as my face took on its normal color again and let my mind escape my current need for a job, escape the rain that had just begun to fall, and escape the demanding world that had caught up to me overseas. When I opened my eyes I was still. Just as I let a smile creep over my face, the poise I had demonstrated so well left just as quickly as it came and I was once again left in shambles on the ground.
On the walk home I forced myself to think only of what Jose was preaching. All this time I had forgotten the number one rule; trust yourself. The little voice in the back of my head was no longer whispering the importance of employment, but rather shouting it from all angles. I had forgotten that I was the one in control of the remote and with one click, the madness could be silenced. So I pressed that mute button and forced the nonsense of finding a job to the back of my mind.
Before marching up to bed, I allowed myself one quick peek at my email. There in my overflowing inbox sat that answers to the many questions that had been swimming laps in my head all day.
Everything was going to be okay.
Before I had time to catch my breath from running around the UK and Ireland, I was wisked away to Spain by a knight in shining armor. The decision to take this unexpected holiday was based solely on the promise I had made to myself before crossing the pond. I was going to take risks, and I was going to take a lot of them. So it was thanks to this ingenious train of thought that led me to be, once again, beach bound! After months of drizzling rain and cloud covered skies I had forgotten the secrets of a summer's sun. Whether it be the warmth that came with tickling rays, the smile you couldn't bear to hide, or the naps that just couldn't wait. You bask in the warmth that sets on your skin and can feel its melting rhythms humming through your skin. As you lie in bed at night your nose tingles with the faint smells of the sea, not yet chased away by the wind. These were memories that floated back to me as I stepped off the plane in Barcelona. All it took was one deep breath, and I was home!