[Click here to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6]

New year, new city: Valencia. My third city I’d moved to in Spain.

New city, new school. My fourth year teaching elementary students.

I still didn’t know how to get 25 Spanish children to be quiet. I still felt like a fraud every time I stood at the front of the class. But, I was starting to get the hang of some things. No one knew I was faking it till I made it–if I’d ever make it.

I loved Valencia, but I missed having my own apartment. Renting an apartment in Valencia was no small feat. The prices were much higher than Gran Canaria. Landlords asked for documents I couldn’t provide, such as an indefinite work contract, and a renter’s insurance, which required said indefinite work contract.

Luckily, I found a room to rent in a day. The apartment was not perfect, but it was ten minutes by foot from my school, and five minutes by foot from the City of Arts and Sciences.

Altogether, six people, including me, lived in that apartment. We shared one bathroom. There was no living room, as that had been turned into another bedroom. Many landlords started to turn the living room into a bedroom to make more money.

At least all the bedrooms had a window. I can’t say the same for some rooms I’ve seen for rent in Madrid.

Four years had gone by without me setting foot in the United States. I never felt homesick; I always felt like, despite the challenges, Spain was my home.

But then my brother proposed to his girlfriend.

And then his fiancée asked me to be one of her bridesmaids.

Had my brother not gotten married, I wouldn’t have gone back. Sure, I missed some people from the United States. But I didn’t miss the country at all.

I had not been happy with how the country had been running for years. At this point, my natal country was starting to resemble a reality TV show that people around the world laughed at. These spectators forgot that there were actual people living in the USA, dealing with one absurdity after another. And the whole world was watching.

Maybe the world thought it was funny because, not too long ago, the United States had been the cool kid. We were the popular kid people pretended to hate but secretly wanted to be. And now, the country was getting kicked left and right, and people around the world joked about it like it was entertainment, or catharsis.

But that’s where I was from. And on top of that, that’s where my memories were—including the most painful ones.

I’d suffered a lot in Spain, but I would take the suffering I had in Spain any day over what I went through growing up in the United States. I was that miserable.

“But maybe if you moved to a different state, things would be different,” people would say to me over the years.

Well, to those people, I’d like to say that sometimes, you can be burned so badly by a place that you never want to go back. And you have the right to build your happiness elsewhere.

That being said, I agreed to be a bridesmaid. But I felt terrified at the thought of coming back to where I came from, especially after five years. I felt physically sick at the thought of being on American soil again. Everything in my body told me no, no, no.

During my fourth year in Spain, I enjoyed Valencia. I had Saturdays off from online teaching for the first time in years. A whole day for me! What a luxury.

My boyfriend and I continued to see each other every few months. Usually, my relationships fell apart after a year and a half. But this time, the relationship was stronger than ever. It wasn’t my most intense relationship; it was probably the least. But it was stable and healthy. This was new for me.

My favorite memories in Valencia, and in Spain, have been Las Fallas. Las Fallas is a festival in Valencia in March. This festival lasts March 1st-March 19th, and it signifies burning the old to make room for the new.

Every day at 2pm, there are fireworks outside the main city hall, which is called the mascleta. Beautiful, colorful monuments decorate the city as if it were a modern art museum. And then, on the night of March 19th, they are burned ruthlessly and joyously to the ground.

I watched my first mascleta on March 1st during my lunch hour. I never thought I’d see fireworks in the daytime. I stood in the crowd, under the sun, in awe. And then I felt someone near me.

It was my 14-year-old self.

I don’t know why my younger self decided to show up that day. But there she was, standing next to me in the crowd, crossing her arms around her body as if she were trying to comfort herself from the world. She looked at me in shock. I don’t think she expected to be there, either.

But then, she looked up. She saw the pyrotechnic spectacle, the crowds, the fireworks. She then looked around and saw the beautiful buildings around her. I saw her break into a smile when she saw the palm trees. Palm trees reminded her of everything Michigan was not.

And I saw her laugh, shout with the crowd, and look at the sky in joy. She looked at me, and I’d never seen my 14-year-old self look so happy. I don’t remember my 14-year-old self feeling so happy.

As I watched the fireworks at the city hall, I felt suddenly emotional. The mascleta was an explosion, a destruction, but it was beautiful. I thought about how my life had felt like a mess for so many years, but look at all I’d accomplished: I got a Master’s degree, was teaching online, and had built a life for myself in a foreign country all alone.

“Maybe my life had to be a wreck in order to be a masterpiece to be reckoned with,” I thought.

The crowd and I looked at the fireworks and listened as the firecrackers got louder and louder, the fireworks got bigger and bigger, until the grand finale, like a marching band in the sky.

Everyone cheered, she smiled, and I could feel tears of joy in my eyes.

And then everyone started to disperse. It was then when I knew I was losing her. And she knew it too.

“Don’t make me go back,” she said, holding onto my arm as if it were a lifeboat. The smile in her eyes was quickly replaced by fear. “Please don’t make me go back there.”

I knew what she was talking about.

Back there was her old life as a 14-year-old girl in the early 2000s, a time when girls like her thought they were fat because they were a size 3 and not a size 0.

Back there was her school, where the cool kids gave a birthday party invitation at recess to the kids to her right and left, but not to her. Like she didn’t exist. Or like being cruel was cool.

Back there meant waking up every day with dread, because she’d have to go to school and face kids who bullied her for being shy and sensitive. Boys would purposely try to make her cry, and then laugh as salt rained from her irises. She got used to hearing people tell her that so-and-so hated her, so she learned to hate herself.

Back there was a religion and a purity culture that taught her that her body was bad, and that it was her responsibility to make sure her fellow brothers in Christ didn’t fall into sin, and if they did, it was probably her fault.

Back there was a place where she was afraid to speak out against her religion, against her peers, against her teachers, so she stayed silent for years. And the silence tasted like poison.

Please don’t make me go back there.

I didn’t want to take her back there. I wanted to grab her before reality could take her away, and make sure no one ever hurt her again. She would never know the scars of heartbreak and betrayal and silence and eventual rebellion.

And yet.

If she never had gone through the aforementioned, would I even have been in Valencia?

Or would I have been too comfortable in Michigan?

Would I have created my own life for myself? Would I have gone down the path less traveled?

Or would I have been too scared of leaving the Midwest?

I knew then that, if I wanted to continue to exist in this reality, I had to let her go back to back there.

And it broke my heart, because I knew the pain she was about to feel again. Not a few days go by where even now, as an adult, I don’t remember it.

But I knew how the story would end.

And I had to tell her before she went back.

“Listen,” I said, holding onto her hands so tightly, because every moment, they felt like they were slipping away more. Her eyes were flooded in tears.

“Listen to me,” I said quickly. “I know that right now, your life feels horrible. But it’s not going to be that way forever. Look at where I live. Look all around you. Isn’t it beautiful? Don’t you love it?”

She nodded, and sniffed. “I like the palm trees,” she said, barely audible.

“Yes! You like the palm trees. You’re going to see more of them. And thanks to you, we have this life. I know right now you feel stuck in your life in Michigan, and for some reason, you want to leave. You want to move across the world and see everything. And someday, you will. The pain will pave the way to paradise. Just wait and see.”

She blinked. Tears fell on her cheeks, on her hands, on my hands. “When will things get better?”

I could feel myself tearing up even more. How was I supposed to tell a 14-year-old child that, in the upcoming years, things were about to get a lot worse before they got better?

I sighed. I had to think fast. She was slipping away by the seconds. “Look, just trust me that things will get better eventually. You liked the fireworks right?”

She nodded. “They were like stars in the sky.”

“Yes! They were like stars in the sky. When you’re sad, I want you to look at the stars in the sky. If you can’t see them, then think of them. Think of one very bright star in the sky. That star is you. Someday, things are going to get better. Someday, you’re going to travel the world. You’re going to speak Spanish, and you’re going to get a boyfriend, and you’re going to see so many beautiful things. Just keep hoping. Don’t ever lose hope. And then take action. Don’t worry if you’re scared. Everyone is scared, but not everyone makes a move toward their dreams. You can. And you will. Just remember–you are that one bright star in the night sky.”

She was about to fade, to go back to back there. I told her, “I would never be here now if it weren’t for what you’re going through. You are brave, and you don’t deserve all the bullshit the other kids are giving you. Turn your pain into something beautiful, and be kind. You never know what others are going through. And remember, even if you don’t see me yet, I’m always here for you.”

Before she could leave, she leapt forward, and gave me a hug. “Come back for me someday,” she said. Then, she faded away in my arms.

I blinked, and I was back in the main square of Valencia, alone, amidst the crowd. I felt like I’d just woken up from a deep sleep. No one had known that I’d just had a reunion with my inner child, the girl who made me who I am today.

I decided that, for the rest of March in Valencia, I would take her to the mascleta at 2pm in the main square whenever it was possible. For a few moments, she would get to come back and remember that everything she was going through was preparing her for what she was asking for: escape and freedom.

On the last day of the fireworks, there was so much gunpowder in the spectacle that some windows in the main square broke.

I spent all day taking pictures of the monuments, enjoying their beauty as much as I could, since they would be burned later that night.

The main Fallas burning would be in the city hall. I found a place near the gate closest to the monument, which included two doves, and a rubber duck next to them. The doves symbolized the desire for peace due to the wars occurring around the world.

When the monuments were finally lit, I was sad at how something so beautiful was gone in an instant. Kind of like how the pandemic made my Gatsby life gone in a matter of days. How could the artist be okay with their work on display for a month, only to be decimated?

Maybe Las Fallas was also about knowing when to let something go to make room for the new.

I’d let go of my comfortably uncomfortable life in Michigan for a life in Spain. I’d broken up with my boyfriend during the pandemic to make room for a lasting relationship with myself. I was letting go of old beliefs and building new ones.

Maybe when we burn something down, we needn’t fear that nothingness will remain. Somehow, and someday, we will rebuild. Las Fallas will return in another year with new monuments and new memories. And we can continue to make monumental moments in our own lives out of the rubble after the fire.

By this point, I’d made no friends in Valencia. I didn’t make any friends at all that year. And yet, I never once felt lonely. For the first time in my life, I enjoyed every minute I spent with myself alone. This time for myself felt like I was nurturing my soul.

At the end of the year in Valencia, I’d been accepted to my second Master’s degree program, Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language. I got a new teaching position at a vocational training school, so I’d be teaching adults again. My boyfriend told me he would quit his job and move to the city I’d be teaching at.

Life was looking good. I felt happy. I actually cried on my last day at my school placement. If I could have, I would have stayed one more year.

But I had a wedding to attend to.