The Horrors of Moving

Moving to Spain is so glamorous and cool! How amazing to start over. Must be nice to have the money to move to Europe. Are they really just going to up and move??? This seems a little hysterical.

At this point we have heard it all. From the envious to the angry, our move has moved others to emotionally vomit all over it. Here is the truth, we did move, weather you like it or not, understand why or not, wish it were you or not... it happened. Honestly I had no idea it would elicit such intense responses from those near and dear to total strangers, but boy oh boy has it! It has been shocking, those that support us and those that don't and it isn't always whom you'd expect. In the end, it doesn't matter. We have moved. It is wild and weird and hard. I think people don't like to hear that either, that it is hard. People want a fantasy retelling of what this is like, and some days it is fantasy like. Other days I cry really hard and don't want to leave my bed. I miss my old life, I miss people, food, and the familiar. 

As I take a moment to look back over this whirlwind few weeks and absorb the reality of having been in our "home town" now for an entire month, it feels a little like the Twighlight Zone. So much has happened, it's been a constant torrent of activities keeping me distracted from registering with the government to filing for residency with the police all while not speaking Spanish. Throw in there a few festivals, some train closures, and a trip to Poland and you can see how this feels more like a sitcom than life.  

I previously shared about my trip to Poland so we will skip to when I returned from Warsaw and went straight into Sitges Film Festival week. This Film Festival is the largest Horror Film Fest in the world! And it is the reason we are in Sitges. Possibly the most random way to find your home in another country, we got to Sitges by way of being horror movie fans. Months ago (holy shit, I can't believe it was only a few months ago) we were in our beautiful, cozy little home in Dixon, New Mexico, hurriedly trying to figure out a giant move to Spain, when we were looking for any reason to be excited, not just scared about this move. Believe it or not (and many of you don't seem to), it was not our ambition to upend our entire lives, give away all of our possessions and move away from our perfect happy lives. Let's not dwell on the depressing aspect though. It is a fact that Denali and I had never been to Spain and Jess had only been when he was on a backpacking trip through Europe after college... not exactly the trip to plan a family move based on. To say the least, we were a little apprehensive about the move. Anyway, taking our Horror Film Major daughter to the biggest Horror Film Festival in the world seemed like a really good perk. Long story short, we were in Rioja, Spain, where we thought we would for sure call home, and tickets went on sale for the film fest. In a covid fever (yes I got covid AGAIN) I bought the Super Fan Pack ticket packages for Denali and I. Fast forward to ticket selection day and we managed to get seats to some of the most epic premieres EVER! Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, Black Phone 2, Alpha by brilliant director Julia Ducournau, the director of American Psycho Q & A, awards given to people like the creator of Friday the 13th... I mean it was a dream come true! Errr or a nightmare come true? Depends on who you ask I guess. We were ecstatic! The entire town celebrates this festival with stores hanging corpses from doorways, smattering windows with bloody handprints and every baker or candy maker made their treats into wildly creative horror fauter. There is even a huge Zombie Walk that includes free professional makeup for anyone wanting to participate and hosts hundreds of people from all over the world to walk or watch the zombies. It is an amazing community of fun horror fans. I digress, the point is this was a really really big deal and the reason why we went south of Barcelona to a little tiny place on the coast called Sitges. 

We were in Spain ahead of Jess in order to find "the spot" and we were getting desperate to pick a place. Like Goldie Locks, nothing seemed perfect so we closed our eyes and picked Sitges. I can't really explain why other than to say it has an amazing film school, and is in Cava wine country. It also has the benefit of being not that cold in winter and not insanely hot in the summer. If nothing else, Sitges would be a good place to start off, we hoped. We had quickly booked an apartment in the old city center in what sounded like the perfect location, literally in the middle of everything. We had still not been to Sitges when we did this. Are we insane? Maybe. But when you are under a great amount of stress and pressure, a lovely little seaside town with the worlds biggest horror film festival... you roll the dice. Luckily it is a place we can see ourselves staying in for some time, maybe even forever. Madrid continues to call my name and I still think of that city with longing, but Sitges has grown under my skin. Ooohhhh was that a zombie pun???

Probably not surprising to many of you, our first apartment was a bit of a disaster. OK, it was a dump. Everything was broken, it had rooms with zero windows, oh sorry, they had windows that faced the elevator shaft, so technically there were windows, they just were not functional. The kitchen was so small that as a single person standing there, you could hardly fit. I mean the "oven" was on the floor under a cabinet requiring it to be hoisted up onto the tiny stovetop and plugged in if you wanted to use it. And the makeshift bedroom at the front of the apartment had windows to the street which was a nightmare of its own. The "living room" had an old crappy loveseat that barely sat 2 people and also served as the hallway to the bedroom and the balcony. I did love the balcony that looked over the magical rainbow road. This spot was the epicenter of Sitges with so much fun and glitter that no one slept... including me. 2 am drunk goodbyes that never end,  3am singing show tunes, 4am glass recycling truck pickup, 5am street washing, 6am cafe setup with dragging heavy tables into place... it was brutal.

It sounds like torture, but it was our place. When we got our residency, which took 3 trips to the Padron and a scary trip to the nearby town to meet with the police, we celebrated there. We saw 22 movies, battling sleep deprivation and exhaustion to walk 4-6 miles per day to see them, all from this apartment. It is where I cried because I missed my husband so much it physically pained me. It is where my mom and dad left us with worried faces and tear filled hugs. It is where we hung our feather boas from our Burlesque class during Bear Week. It is where our Spain life truly started. Even though it was an incredible heap of junk, it was a place that will always be so special to us. 

Today, I write to you from our NEW apartment. A place in San Sebastian (it is a beach in Sitges) that is on a quite street just a stone's throw from the beach. We have gone way over our budget to rent this place and it isn't perfect. It is the definition of the Super Sounds of the 70's with wall to wall built in cabinets, but it is so spectacular in comparison to what Denali and I were in that we are in awe. 2 People fit in the kitchen at a time and all appliances are installed and ready to use at a moment's notice. When Jesse arrives, all 3 of us can sit on the sofa, and it even has 2 bathrooms. The problem is my husband hasn't experienced any of this. He will walk into what has to be a time warp of an apartment to see something small and funky. We hope he can see the allure of this small town, but what if he can't? What if he doesn't like it here? What if his lack of zombie interaction means he can't see the gory glory? I have to admit I have been holding my breath a bit. 

It has all felt a little surreal, like we were on an exotic vacation, but Jess joining us means it is real. This chance to start over also means we have to start over... everything is new, you know nothing and that is daunting. All of our savings has been eaten up quicker than we had estimated and the anxiety it is creating is fierce. The intensity of a move like this washes over me and I have to remind myself to breathe. I dig my toes into the silky sand, tilt my face up to the warm golden sun and think about the crisp, citrusy glass of cold Malvasia white wine I will have later today. It is not the end of our lives there in the USA, just a new story we will be writing together in Spain. Lets just cross our fingers that it isn't a script for our daughter's next horror film.

*** Since writing this, Jesse has arrived. Stay tuned for what happened next!