27 March, 2013

By VIVA Team

There is no denying it: Life's a beach on the Costa del Sol

If expats are a particular, peculiar breed, then what does that make ex-expats? Former foreigners in a strange land thrust back into the country of their birth either through choice or circumstance?

I only ask because I am one. An ex-expat, that is. A former émigré of the UK – previously perma-tanned, forever on the cusp of mastering Spanish and always, always, with one eye on the weekend’s weather forecast…

Now, though, I’m just a ‘Brit’ once again. No expat suffix for me, just plain-old Ian from the UK. I’m fine with it, or at least I was, for a while. But returning ‘home’ after living in Spain is not too dissimilar, one would imagine, to the five well-known stages of grief.

When you have made the decision to go back (or have no choice but to), your psyche goes through a number of different stages of denial, acceptance, happiness, excitement, delusion and disillusion. There’s no rhyme or reason to when or why you will experience these feelings, but experience them you will.

The first few months back home are fun, largely. You are more appreciative of the things you used to take for granted (like British TV – possibly the best in the world, although that’s only because the soggy weather dictates that a lot of UK cultural life is played out indoors, so it simply has to be good), you catch up with family and old friends, and reacquaint yourself with comfortably familiar rhythms, sounds and smells.

But the honeymoon period doesn’t last long. Whatever the season, the weather will start to get you down. Even if you’ve never noticed it before, the colour of the British sky is a deep grey for approximately 85 per cent of the time. I notice it now, constantly. In Spain you can cast your gaze towards the heavens and see the god of light and warmth sparkling down at you; in Britain any glance skywards is usually met with a chilly dose of precipitation, which is sometimes hurled at you horizontally, just for heavenly kicks.

Everything is terribly well ordered in the UK. Which isn’t a problem if you’ve never lived away because it’s all you know – warnings for this, barriers for that, regulations for over there and restrictions for that bit there. Brits are corralled throughout their daily existence, a pretence of ‘freedom’ given a gleaming, heavily marketed sheen in the shape of ‘aspirational’ TV ads. ‘You can be who you want to be!’ they whisper, provided, of course, that it doesn’t contravene the litany of rules.

Not so in Spain, a country where you are – almost – on your own. You are treated like the adult you are. There are fewer boundaries – both physically and psychologically – to exploration and enjoyment. There is more wilderness to hike through, more dramatic landscapes to admire and far fewer ‘threats of a fine’ if you do decide to stray from the party line.

But just when you think that life back in Blighty is going to be too untenable to bear, a strange acceptance washes over you. You forget about the awful weather and instead embrace the fact that a ‘spot of rain’ isn’t enough to put the skids on a barbecue, music festival or day at the beach. You revel in Brits’ ability to laugh at this – and plenty other idiosyncrasies. You explore your country in ways you didn’t before and you come to terms with the fact that things aren’t so bad here.

They aren’t. But being ‘not so bad’ is not what the Costa del Sol teaches you about life.

Life in southern Spain teaches you that you don’t have to have a pricey parking permit to snaffle a spot right outside your apartment. It teaches you that your spacious and well-built apartment can have a balcony, a spare bathroom and a shared pool and doesn’t have to cost the earth. It teaches you to appreciate the simple pleasure of dinner with friends that runs late into the night and doesn’t require copious amounts of booze or awkward small talk/flirting to see it through (although this is optional). It teaches you that children should not be hidden away, wrapped in cotton wool and banished from any bar or restaurant where their mere presence might cause offence. It teaches you that all generations should be respected and included, particularly older folk.

But most of all, living in Spain teaches you that whatever you want from life – a dream house, a fulfilling social life, a healthy lifestyle, a great career – you can have it, provided you work hard and learn to appreciate your lot.

So why am I saying this? Am I returning to Spain? Alas not, for now at least. But as Spring refuses to, well, spring, I can’t help but peer enviously at my Facebook feed of friends still happily ensconced in southern Spain and enjoying the first rays of what will certainly be another long, hot and happy summer.

I thought I’d gotten over Spain but, in truth, the UK was just the accommodating rebound. Steady, secure, safe and comforting. A bedrock of a bosom in stormy seas, but hardly the type to set the pulse racing.

For that, Spain will always be number one, and you should make her your mistress too – she’ll take you on one hell of a ride.