Cuz I’m a Punk Rocker, Yes I Am.

Today, I took a day off!

But not the kind of day where I sit on the couch making lists in my head of everything I am not doing. Not the kind of day where I burn through five episodes in a row when what I should be doing is housework. Not the kind of day where I tell myself I am resting, but twelve hours later I look up from the computer, stunned that the day has vanished and I never left my chair.

So today I took a real, but accidental, day off.

I woke up early like I always do, while it was still a little dark outside and the sky had not yet decided what color it wanted to be. When you get up before the day really starts here, you beat the humidity, you beat the heat. You wake up to the sound of the surf first, then the birds. There is a stillness that feels almost surreal. Sometimes I will slip outside just to throw the trash out, and there will not be a single person on the street. It feels like I am the only person on earth.

But as the sun creeps closer to the horizon, people start to stir. They peek out from their windows, and they make their way to the lookout in front of my building. A couple of them with cameras, others just walking or jogging past. All of them staring up in the same direction like they are in a Steven Spielberg movie and watching a spaceship land.

The sunrise is different every day. And so every day, a camera will record it.

People talk about waking up with joy in their heart. I do not know about all that. But I do know this is my favorite time of day. I luxuriate in it, stretch it out as long as I can, before the weight of my problems breaks through the dam of peace that holds back the cortisol that floods my brain with stress and my body with extra weight I never asked for.

Today, however, I was meeting a friend for coffee. And what I love about meeting someone for coffee here is that I am not rushing out the door to be someplace by 8 in the morning. People here are human beings who actually like to enjoy their lives, so they usually set coffee dates for 10:30 or 11. Today it was 11.

So I got myself downstairs, and when I sat down across from her, I realized I did not actually want coffee. Besides, I had already made myself breakfast, because if there is one thing I cannot do, it is wake up at 7 a.m. and not eat. And then it hit me, I was not there for coffee. I was there to hang out. I was there to celebrate.

Celebrate what, you ask? Progress.

And today, progress deserved bubbles.

I have been working on a project, a labor of love if you will, for some time, and for the last two and a half years I have been picking up pieces of it without even realizing that is what I was doing, and then this week something shifted and the picture finally came into focus, and yesterday I put the last pieces in place and I launched it.

And so as we sat there I started talking, telling her a little bit about this project, and I started to feel something I was not used to, something I almost did not recognize. I started to feel a little happy. Yeah, I am pretty sure it was happiness, and maybe even a little pride. If you have been following along with me, then you know I have been struggling. This blog has been about losing everything and finding myself with nothing more to lose. So I went for it. And I suddenly have a new reason for getting out of bed in the morning.

We sat there for a few hours under the umbrellas, a steady offshore breeze keeping us cool even though the sun was definitely working on us. It was not long before someone we knew walked by, we said good morning, they pulled up a chair and ordered a beer. They stayed a little while, got up, and left, and pretty soon it happened again. That is how it is in this town. When you embrace the town, when you really want to be part of it, the town embraces you back.

And that is something I had not felt in a long time, that easy sense of community, that quiet love. I wanted to soak it up, so I stayed out longer, and the longer I stayed the more fun I was having. And then it hit me. I was having fun with no guilt attached. And that realization was something to celebrate too, because I am someone who is wound up pretty tight, very much like my mom, and just sitting down, relaxing, hanging out, it does not come easy or naturally for me, at least not anymore, and certainly not with all the stress I am under.

When it came time to get up, I was picking up my purse and I took one last look out at the beach, and to my surprise there were a couple of friends down there with their kid. I guess I just was not ready to go home, because I said goodbye to my friend and walked my way down to the sand. I sat with them for a little while, my toes buried, and even got up to put my feet in that beautiful Mediterranean sea.

I was only there for about half an hour when I started getting hungry and I started getting sleepy.

Back upstairs I made myself what has become a pretty regular dinner: mussels with hummus, crudités, and some charcuterie. Because it is super easy to throw together and you do not have to scrub pots or clean up splatter afterward. One last glass of wine, a quick kitchen clean, then I sat back with my feet on the coffee table and watched a little TV.

But I wanted to write this down. I wanted to mark it, because I moved to Spain for a better life and if I don’t start living it I am going to miss it. Today was a day I would have missed if my friend had not called and got me outside, and I needed the reminder that I do deserve downtime. I do deserve this life. That everything is figureoutable. And that I’m going to be OK.

Could this possibly be some self-esteem and some self-worth creeping its way back into my life? Good. I’ve been needing a little punk rock back in it.