We Said Goodbye

Granada Alhambra Gardens, originally uploaded by uncsuperman.

Jeremy and Bridget left the following morning. It was Tuesday and they were on their way to San Sebastian to watch the running of the bulls.

Amanda got up early and went downstairs to get a bite of breakfast to eat. She was leaving today to get a new passport in Madrid. Then she was traveling south to Malaga to fly back into England.

I didn't know what to do. Not wanting her to leave, but not knowing whether this was where the road was supposed to end or not, I was frozen.

And I had been there before.

It's only been a few years ago, but it seems like much longer than that when I broke up with Nicole. 16 months was a long relationship for me - the longest certainly that I have ever had. We had our problems, for sure, and there were reasons for my actions. Good reasons. But when you're young and immature you often miss the forest for the trees.

Not long after we broke up, I regretted it. A series of circumstances and mistakes on my part led me to begin to doubt myself. And I don't just mean doubt my interactions with girls.

I doubted everything.

What to eat for lunch, what classes to take, when to take them, whether to believe in God, whether to believe in myself, whether to ever try having a relationship again, what girl to try it with. A constant series of self-doubting questions left me broken and spent.

It took a long time for those to stop lingering and were even brought back by another relationship gone bad, but that's another story for another day.

So here I was, with this girl, amidst a spectacle of circumstances, and I didn't want to watch her walk away.

But there's nothing I can do - we choose our own paths and she had to choose hers. I suppose in many ways her hand was forced, but I'm a believer in making things happen - if you want them bad enough.

I went to the bus station with her - my stuff still spread out in our hostel, for I was staying another day or 2 - fully expecting her to leave that morning.

Her eyes danced back and forth - toward the sky, toward the floor - as she studied the bus schedule.

"When should I leave?"

"That's your decision - leave at whatever time will put you into Madrid when you want to get there."

If she left immediately, the bus would pull into Madrid early in the evening. Or she could take the night bus, save money by not paying for a hostel, and spend more time with me. Her call.

The eyes danced some more and then she bought the ticket. Night bus.

I was happy and she knew it. We spent the rest of the day together acting like we had all the time in the world to be together. We shopped. We ate. We took a siesta.

The setting for dinner was a plaza underneath the changing colors of the evening sky. Afterwards, we meandered to a dessert-only eatery where the 4 of us had visited a few days before.

A lot can be said for a full Spanish meal. But the Spanish do desserts like I have never seen.

A man carrying a guitar sang to all of us out in that square that night. Eating one of the best desserts of my life, sitting there with the girl, listening to the singing man - I had another one of those moments.

I forgot about the fact that she was leaving in a few hours. I forgot about the fact that I was going to be alone and lost once again in this foreign country.

And I felt content. The feeling from that night in Valencia came back to me - it came and surrounded me on several occassions during my journey.

We made our way back up to the Mirador for a bit and sat in each other's arms. Simple.

When it was time to go, we hadn't planned on the city buses not running. A taxi would have to be flagged down.

A white and green car stopped and Amanda had to leave. We said our goodbyes and stood there facing each other.

You would of thought we were the leading characters in some classic romance movie - the kind that were prevalent long before I was born, but seem to be a lost art in today's world. Hollywood is too busy trying to impose its political views on America to make any quality movies anymore.

But that kiss was the stuff of legend, I swear to you.

And that's all I'm going to say about it - because words will not do it justice.

Walking back to the hostel after watching this girl ride away, emotions overcame me.

I was confused, trying to get answers from God about where this path was going. He was not willing to answer me.

Not yet.