Coming Apart - Jennifer Baljko

It all came to a head one gray day in February. The insanity of my life, and the insanity of the choice I made to leave behind everything to live abroad with a man I barely knew, smacked me in the face. What the hell am I doing here?, I kept wondering.

I had decided the previous August to go live in Barcelona. I said goodbye to San Francisco, and took a side trip to Croatia to harvest olives from trees planted by my great grandparents. Then, in January, to kick off the new year, I would start my fairy tale life with a guy I had come to love through long-distance calls and email. It was supposed to be perfect.

So why was I crying almost every day? I was completely coming apart. Nothing during these last few winter weeks felt right. I couldn’t speak Catalan or Spanish. I didn’t have any friends I could go grab a coffee with, and I kept getting lost every time I left the apartment. It tipped for the worse when I unknowingly bought a chicken with it’s head still attached, and had only a dull paring knife to saw at its neck of before I could roast it. I don’t know what was more pathetic – the dead chicken with it half-cut neck drooping over the sink, or me, the 35-year-old-woman blabbering foolishly to the dead chicken. “Why does everything have to be so hard,” I wailed. I leaned against the countertop and bawled until I was shaking. I had nothing, nothing I could call mine. Nothing was familiar. I just wanted something, anything, a sign of sorts, showing I made the right decision.

What I had was a really good guy who tried to comfort me. We both wanted this to work. It was new territory for both of us, and we had growing pains. Me worse than him. But, he made me feel safe. Safety wasn’t a substitute for familiarity, but at least I had that. And, that was a good start.