Sending my love all the way from Spain.

Living abroad can really suck sometimes. Like when all you want to do is drive home for the weekend, but realize that that's completely impossible. My Grandpa died Monday morning, and even though we'd all been expecting it and it didn't come as a complete surprise, it still makes it hard to walk into class and listen to my students scream and shout in my ear and not try to act like I want to kill them all. Sometimes silence is nice.

It's so easy to wrap yourself up in this little extranjera bubble, where everything back home feels like it's frozen in time until you'll eventually return. So not true. People back home keep changing, and living, and obviously, moving on. Things will be so much different than they were when I left 9 months ago. But maybe since I've recognized that fact now, it will be easier to come to terms with when I do finally get home. 

I've had my share of moments these past 4 months when I was so homesick I was ready to buy the next plane ticket home. But this is different. Knowing that all of my family is together back home celebrating the life of this fantastic person, but that I am 3,000 miles away by myself, is really hard. So, like the post title says, I'm sending my love to my Grandma and the rest of my family, all the way from Spain. I miss you guys and love you, and hope you'll save some of the stories about Grandpa for the next time I'm there too.