The Dreams We Don’t Expect

From the steps of the cathedral, the mountains looked small and uniform.  My mom and I held our cans of Aquarius, thankful for the electrolytes.  We wondered what lay beyond the hills, but today we had no intention to cross them.  We were midway through some of the happiest days of my life.  My sister, Mom, and Dad had come to see Jeni and me in Spain and to meet their first granddaughter - my first child.  

18 year old me would have shuddered at the luxury of my current life, but he would have been thrilled by the spirit of what I am living.   I never thought my Spanish studies would take me here.  First of all, because I was supposed to learn Spanish to “help poor people”.  I used to wield that poverty label with a lot more freedom, placing people into clear categories.  And I used to think that people in poverty needed my charm and intelligence to fix their lives up.  

Beyond that, Spain seemed distant and irrelevant.  One of my teachers offered bonus points for learning the “vosotros” form of verbs, used only in Spain.  I didn’t bother to learn that form and I told myself I was headed to Central or South America with what I had learned.  I put action to that belief, traveling to Chile absolutely alone and spending 2 weeks in a country where I knew absolutely no one.  But that trip left me sensing that I had no purpose to live in Chile.  

My parents paid my way on my first trip to Spain.  A small puddle jumper took me and my Dad to the Iberian Peninsula for a few short days of an amazing family trip to Europe.  And that small puddle jumper triggered a series of events that led to me falling in love with Jeni in Spain.  

And now in Spain with that same love  and a baby we take care of together, I am dreaming things I never expected to dream.  Dreaming of returning to my home country.  Dreaming of being neighbors with my parents.  Dreaming of living in a place where I fit in without trying.