Kamila Muffin Studio

The Roller Coaster Of Traveling To Spain. 

On Thursday, I returned from an almost three weeks trip to Spain. It might not have been a very reasonable decision considering that I have to submit the final work of my career in three weeks, but well, we’re not here to make reasonable decisions but decisions that make us happy. And that decision made me very, very happy.

The trip was also tremendously healing, although I didn’t notice it until I returned to the United Kingdom and realized that certain things that had been hurting me a lot suddenly didn’t hurt as much. And that speaking about certain topics, debating them, confronting them, discussing them with my friends and listening to their opinions had done more for my mental health than two months of therapy.

Who knows, maybe it’s because I’m still on a high from seeing my friends, all the sun I’ve soaked up, the homemade meals I’ve begged for, and the new friends I’ve made. Maybe the high will have worn off in two weeks, and I’ll be just as sad as before, but I don’t think so.

An emotional earthquake 
Returning to Spain has been challenging, apart from being beautiful and healing. It always is. After having lived in four countries, nine cities, and 19 houses, the closest thing I have to a familiar home, to a family city, is that small town in the mountains of Madrid where I lived for four years and where I had the closest thing to a family.

Today, memories, friends, secret whispers in the corners, streets where I returned so many nights from parties with laughter on my lips, sunsets that I admired so many afternoons, corners where I gave so many kisses, bars where we shared so many beers and conversations, remain there.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned during these three years of college, it’s to change my relationship with the camera. My camera is much more than a tool to take photos; much more than a mere instrument. It’s my therapy, my map for when I don’t understand the world, my private therapist.

She discovered that that village was my home, and it is with her that I have taken so many walks these days, cried so much, and asked myself so many times: Did I do the right thing?

When you emigrate, it’s a question that accompanies you for life. It doesn’t mean I regret it or think I shouldn’t have left. Simply, there’s doubt. It was a great decision, and there’s no going back.

Because no matter how much you return, half of your heart will have stayed forever in another country 💔

Emigrating is building a life from scratch: sometimes a new language, often almost a new personality. New job, house, and group of friends. Sometimes new partners and families. Often new hobbies and traditions. You become part of the country you’ve emigrated to.

And you live forever with your heart divided between the country you come from and the country you live in. You’re always giving something up no matter what land you step on.