Home

Being away from Madrid for nine days was, for lack of a better word, odd.

Everything in California felt familiar. The smell of my sheets fresh out of the dryer (oh, how I had missed having a dryer). The sound of my dog barking when there's a knock on the door. The hugs from my family members. It all stayed strong in my memory.

However, these memories are now mixed with those from Madrid, my second home. And I really do feel that I've found my niche here. Almost every Monday and Tuesday, my favorite Madrid ladies and I sit outside the school cafeteria to eat lunch, talking about politics, complaining about boys, laughing loudly as we crack jokes like the wise-asses we are. They smoke and I drink coffee after coffee, shaking with a caffeine overload. Ordering café con leche has become my own version of smoking cigarettes.

When we have lunch all together, talking about anything that pops up in our heads, I feel as comfortable as I do in my childhood house. I've never had two homes before, but things change as I age.

Upon the arrival of the new year, I've been thinking about where I will call "home" next. I've just signed up to take a TEFL class so I can teach English abroad. My goal is to teach in Brazil, the land of unknown family members and a beautiful language.

Hopefully, I'll be able to find myself a third home.