here it comes.

it hit me today.

i'm leaving friday. i'm leaving maria. i'm leaving juan. i'm leaving my 3 baylor girls. i'm leaving my daily unconventional spanish life lesson sessions with juan. i'm leaving eating all of my meals on the terrace of my dreams. our favorite spanish friend and maybe one of the most incredible guys i've ever met, periko. the peace of this home. my corner nook bed. being 20 minutes late to school everyday and having maria and juan laugh us out the door. i'm leaving the home i've made here. and i'm sad. i'm really, really sad.

i usually don't cry about leaving somewhere before the day that i leave, but this afternoon, monique and i said goodbye to a lot of the kids in our program who fly out in the morning. it started then i guess. it's weird because even though i'm leaving madrid, i'm still not going "home home". but i'm going to italy which will be so good, i know it. but moral of the story is, i walked around the royal palace this afternoon with my friends and tried my best to take it all in. i came home with monique and napped some, and i woke up and ate dinner with maria. i haven't stopped crying since. i'm a big baby. lets just be honest. i can't handle this.

it's crazy how quickly a month has flown by.


and it's even crazier how much i've fallen in love with spain.

spain has given me the most beautiful space to live my life without any pressure or any expectation of who i'm supposed to be or what i'm supposed to be doing. it's been really really good for me. because believe it or not, i put a lot of pressure on myself when it just comes to simple living. and that's ridiculous. but i'm learning. and i'm moving. everyday i get a little taller and a little freer. and i like that. i'm thankful.

someone told me something last summer that still continues to rock my life even to this day.

"the thumbprint of the enemy is pressure"

holy crap. yes. is that true, or is that true? just saying. if you don't get anything out of what i write at all, remember that.

i don't really know what to blog about anymore. i've kind of been a lame writer. but the past 2 weeks have been the biggest whirlwind. in the best sense. we went to a place called Cadiz and layed on the most beautiful beach imaginable. then monique and i discotecha'd it up until 6:30am the other weekend. that was a for sure life highlight for me. it's a pretty normal spain thing, but it's generally not a normal brooke thing. i like it though. i like dancing ridiculously.

i made a new spanish boyfriend. i don't really remember his name. it was faudio or fabio or something..probably faudio. but he came up to me in the discotecha and yelled "shakira! shakira!" at me and bowed in front of me. it was one of the more wonderful, hilarious moments of my life..mostly because i dance like an idiot 100 percent of the time. he found of that my name was Iva, prounounced as Eva in spanish, like Eve in the bible, and he told me that I was Eve..the definition of a woman. this was one of the more uncomfortable awkward hilarious moments in my life. but due to the fact that he was not a creeper, 5 inches shorter than me, and i could have crushed him, he gained spanish boyfriend status.

anyway, i have to go i have to go i have to go! i have much more to say. many life lessons to share. sorry i'm a lame blog writer. but i gave you this at least.

love you friends.

brooke.

ps. song of the day. makes me cry and shows me the face of the Lord everytime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqUsAHTUPTU