1.21.26

Dear Rosendo,

Yesterday I took a high speed train from Madrid back to the small municipality in the south in which I live, Orihuela. I’ve done the same trip a handful of times and sometimes get nervous when the bullet train wobbles on the tracks because of how fast it goes. Every time we blast through a tunnel, the air around us gets tight and vibrates. 

Some hundreds of kilometers to the west, at nearly the exact same time, another bullet train was traveling from Madrid to a small municipality in the south, called Adamuz. This train, however, jumped the tracks and collided with a northbound train and forty people, as of the current count, have died and hundreds more are still hospitalized.

 What’s more, a week after I visited the small french village of Chamonix during Christmas break, a fire broke out nearby and killed forty tourists, with hundreds more injured as well.

I think Europe is trying to kill me. Death is following me around here––in some small ways and in some bigger ways. If I had been going to Adamuz instead of Orihuela that day, or if I had chosen to go to Crans-Montana over Christmas instead of Chamonix, I might not be here. Every morning when I ride my bike on the side of the Spanish highway in the dark with no shoulder, I think about how all it takes is one driver who is a little less than totally focused to drift a bit to one side and send me flying into the ditch that will double as my grave. The elevator in my apartment building was just inspected and now there’s a sign posted above the buttons that say: desfavorable – con defectos graves. So I suppose at any moment I could fall 6 six stories.

Here I’ve been sick more often than I’ve been healthy––it seems like every other week I have caught a new cold, likely some remnant of the bubonic plague from the 1300s––or maybe the smallpox that these whiteys brought to the Americas that wiped out the indigenous peoples. My family has been in America for six generations now––is that enough time to lose our immunity to these European illnesses? It sure feels like it. Because after only four months here, I’ve had the flu twice, three different colds, a throat infection, likely mono (though I never tested), and hemorrhoids. I haven’t had a solid shit since October and my nose hasn’t stopped running since November. On top of that, I am frequently fatigued and regularly run on energy reserves. I sleep sometimes ten hours a night, with a three hour nap in the middle of the afternoon (sponsored by the Spanish siesta) and am growing worried that something might actually be wrong with me. I’ve been to a doctor in town but the farthest I’ve gotten so far is the prescription for ass cream, which is helping. The brain tumor that’s certainly growing in my skull is next on the to-do list.

My physical body failing me doesn’t make wanting to be here easy. I didn’t love this country to begin with, and while it has grown on me in small ways, I have been getting more and more depressed as I struggle to find a diet that suits me, a sustainable sleep-schedule, and a consistently clear throat. I think about quitting a lot and wonder how many more mornings I can take of waking up with my voice gone and coughing green phlegm into my sink, only to have to bundle up in the 39 degree weather and get on my bike and get to school, hoping that some driver will finally atropellarme and end it all. I say this to tell you that we might be seeing each other sooner than expected. 

Coming to a new country, I expected there to be challenges, culture shock, language barriers, loneliness, etc, and there is certainly all of that. Spaniards can be quite cold sometimes and clique-ish, making friendships difficult, and I do spend a lot of time alone. The food is not particularly flavorful or nutritious and mostly consists of olive oil and cured meats, and a vegetable is hard to come by. But these are the things I was preparing myself for and am willing to face and bear if it means I get to experience a new country. However, I was not expecting to feel so physically bad all the time, and, over a few conversations with my family, am considering it’s not worth it to stay if I continue to be sick.

As I write to you now, it’s the first time in a while that I feel clearheaded, energized, and healthy. I’ve gotten over all of the sicknesses I had in December, and the fever that nearly sent me to the hospital in Morocco has broken and the sun is out and I’m sitting in a cafe drinking a coffee (the first I’ve had in a month since the doctor recommended I cut out caffeine for the hemorrhoids). That to say, I feel amazing. Incredible. I feel so grateful for my health, now more than ever because I’m realizing that, as probably most twenty-somethings, I’ve taken it for granted for most of my life. But the fact that I went out the other day with some friends to play soccer and felt excited and energized to do so was such a gift. I hope I continue to feel this way so that I’m able to enjoy the simple parts of my experience here in Spain––so that I can get back to complaining about the way they pronounce the word gracias (“grathias”) and how they don’t invite me to their parties. That was when things were fun.

I love you and I miss you, I hope you’re doing well.

Luke