Fair Weather Friend

When I was in middle school, I preferred to live in book-world. I read a lot, probably more than was healthy for any thirteen year-old girl struggling to find the balance between social studies and actually participating in the social world. I mostly read fantastical stories of far-off adventures, full of dragons, dwarves, and occasionally, mildly explicit bodice-ripping sex scenes. From time to time, I would also indulge in stories that were set not in Narnia or Middle Earth, but in exciting real-life places like Maryland. One of my favorite “real-life” stories was The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Anne Brashares. Yes, it was trite and corny, but I fell in love with the characters--four teenage girls wildly different from one another but somehow all going through the same thing: that dreadful yet long-awaited agony of female adolescence.

My favorite girl would change from time to time, depending on which one of them I identified most with at the moment: did I sympathize more with Lena’s shy and artsy side? Tibby’s dry-witted, hair-dyed irreverence? Bridget’s bubbly, warm extravagance and pure energy? For a while, my favorite character was Carmen: tough, dramatic, and somehow pragmatic and passionate at the same time.

I was in the 10th grade when the fourth and final book came out, and even though I was fifteen and moving on to even worse paperback literary nightmares (Twilight, anyone?), I was beyond excited to find out how the Sisterhood would end. Much to my disappointment, Carmen’s part in this final installment had me sighing in disgust on every page. Brashares sent Carmen out this final summer of Sisterhood to what seemed would be a great fit for her colorful and strong personality: drama camp. Somewhere on the drive to camp, though, Carmen lost all the fight in her and she arrived mousy and self-depreciating. I was embarrassed for her. How could it have come to this? This wasn’t the Carmen we knew and loved. I just couldn’t believe that someone so proud could disintegrate into this whimpering, sad back-stage...whatever, content to be in the shadow and let people kick her around. I was finally able to stop rolling my eyes when she re-harnessed her passion at the end of the novel to finish as the lead in the play with the appropriate boytoy on her arm, but the memory of her weakness left a bad taste in my mouth, and it has ever since.

I never understood her sudden transformation. Indeed, I had forgotten all about it until a few weeks ago when I realized that what had happened to my beloved fictional BFF so many years ago was happening to me. Exactly. Confident, strong-willed heroine enters new territory and transforms not into swan, but into ugly, flea-bitten duckling. There was no good reason for it at all, not even for the sake of nauseating plot movement. And just as when I sat in my living room as a fifteen year-old, I couldn’t for the life of me understand what was going on. It doesn’t make sense. I still don’t get it, despite that tenth-grader inside me rolling her eyes in disgust. 

Being the critical thinker I am, I tried to figure out a trigger for my sudden transformation. I decided it was the weather, which has been (until about last week) a hell of a lot colder than anyone wants you to think it ever gets in Spain. I joked that Spain was my Fair Weather Friend--great when times are good, but an awful, no-good piece of shit that flakes on all of your plans when they aren’t. I couldn’t wait to leave. I put a timer on my desktop that counted down the days until my flight to London. I hid in my room with the shades drawn. I watched corny BBC scifi shows on my laptop. I put on a little more weight than I’m proud to admit, drowning my sorrows in chocolate. I had to fight the urge to thrown my jamón serrano out the window at every meal. Beautiful, exotic Spain my ass--I just wanted to go home.

Then, as some of you might be aware, I went on a four-day holiday to Ireland. (This is one of the many blessed things about living Europe. Don’t like the country you’re in? No problem, just fly to another one for a few days!)

It was exactly what I needed, what I didn’t even know I needed: a break from the city, from the teasing beach, from the Spaniards and the Americans and the bloody cured ham. The rolling green hills enchanted me. No one in Ireland knew I had become fourth-book Carmen. I could be anything I wanted, again. So when we walked into our 9-bed room at the hostel in Killarney, I was overjoyed at how easy it was to talk to the girl from New Zealand in the bunk across from us. I was back.

Ireland was amazing. Killarney was touristy and impossibly small, but it was just what we needed. We walked in the neighboring national park every day, and went out to the pubs to see real Trad sessions (traditional Irish music) and taste real beer (Guiness!). We roomed with the most amazing people, and for the first time, we were in a city interacting with English-speaking people who weren’t all American--two Australians, a Kiwi, and a Canadian. Most importantly, I got a huge slap-in-the-face reminder of how I am supposed to react in new situations. It was nice to realize that I wasn’t actually suddenly and irreversibly transformed into a fundamentally-inept social retard. I was just...Carmen, book 4. Whatever that means.

Still haven’t figured out how I’m going to make the jump to Carmen, end of book 4, with restored confidence and arm candy. But I guess I’ve decided that I can start with this list of resolutions:

1. Go to the beach at least four days a week
2. Drink more sangria
3. Embrace the belly
4. Write more
5. Find my perfect bar, away from that night club shit
6. Meet some Spaniards (I type this with hesitating, introverted fingers--we’ll see how that goes)
7. Work my way up to running up to the castle and back

I just realized that I wrote a post all about my inner angst and then I ruined it by mentioning that I can walk up to an ancient moorish castle whenever the hell I want. Oh, Spain.