¡te quiero, Pepé!

My husband and my children are not here today. Actually, they have been away for five days, visiting my parents-in-law in españa.

'Its good isn't it?' i tell myself, good that N. and L. get to hear some castellano for a change.. english can be such a soul destroying language at times. It's good that A. has time to see old friends.. its good that my little girls get to know their grandparents.. yes its all good, except here i am, alone again. Its not good for me, i need to have people around me. I never used to be like that, but now i understand that its people that make my life colourful. I can survive for a while without them, but my life soon becomes empty and directionless.

Tonight i looked in the mirror at myself. I have a heart shaped necklace and i looked at it, thinking.. this is what life is. I have a heart inside me, just like the one on this necklace except mine is real.. its beating and it keeps me warm.. it makes me carry on, and yet, nobody is here to notice. Nobody can hear these thoughts that i have in my life. Nobody can see if im smiling or sad. My only friend is a computer screen, a keyboard and pepé the cuddly teddy bear, who keeps me company at night. Poor old pepé, i feel guilty if i don't tuck him in properly, and i hold his hand at night before we both fall asleep.

i think that the night is the worst part about being alone. When it goes dark, the whole ambience of the house changes. Suddenly i am aware if the door is locked or not. I hear someone talking outside the window, we live in a red brick terraced house. We don't have a front garden, just a pretty little window box that i have neglected recently.. still i guess the pansies will flower this week. Something to look forward too. Anyway, i hear voices outside, i am suddenly worried that they are intending to enter. When its day, i don't feel threatened like this.. i think the silence in the house is strange so when i go to bed that i lock the bedroom door. It makes me feel more secure. I put an extra pillow on A's side of the bed.. i think that if someone comes in, nobody can see i'm in bed.

what else am i supposed to do at night? i don't have a car, and i live in a not-so-great area of a not-so-important town in the middle of a cold and empty country. I feel scared to leave the house on my own. I don't really have any friends since my children were born, my whole life has become devoted to them, and now they aren't here. Maybe i'll go upstairs and watch a video.. lets see what do we have? the sixth sense? i've seen that one, and its got scary music.. not such a great thing, when its dark outside and your alone honey..

.

well.. you know, im sorry pepé, its how i feel. I know you are up there keeping my bed ready for me really. You are like my third child, but i treat you badly when the others are around. I know that, i hope that one day you will understand why.. I promise you're going to have a proper mummy from now on ok?

well.. anyway, i've decided to come on here and spill out my feelings onto this strange website again. I sometimes go on webcam when i feel like this. I talk to some friendly, and yet distant and untouchable people on the internet. tonight, though, i just don't want to be stared at.

so i guess that its and i'm stuck in all alone again. I suppose that at least today i went out for a walk before it got dark. You know what happend? as usual, i was feeling self conscious and irratable, but i began wondering.. do we ever really notice the people who walk by? do they notice me, or are we still alone even when we're walking down the road?

today, while i walked, i saw two tall and handsome young men in army uniforms crossing the road. Did they realise that i am alive and have a heartbeat too? Did they notice when i walked past them? What goes on in their lives, do i notice them? do they feel their heart beating when they are alone, just like i do? I have so many questions that im afraid to ask and we see so many people every day. Who knows what has happend to them in their time. Are they happy or are they sad? I often wonder this when i see them pass me by. Today i saw two old men walking with each other. They seemed happy didn't they? have i seen anyone else today who was sad? i don't know.. maybe its more difficult to tell when someone is sad. Perhaps im not looking hard enough for it. Do they see that i am sad?

there is a whole lot of things to see in the world, every day.. but when im alone, i have nobody to tell, apart from pepé. I hope that he's not sad too..

oh well, i suppose i should really enjoy these feelings while they are there. Maybe thats what i have to learn from today...

España

dear diary,

how do i start writing this? well i suppose i'm going to write down what i've experienced, thought about and felt over the last 4 weeks.

my partner A. and i spend alot of our time travelling between countries, we work in Britain and whenever we get holidays we've always gone back to Spain.

A. is from there, yes i'm married to a spaniard, or 'spanish' as A. would prefer i called him as he hates the word spaniard. I suppose its not that nice a word is it? Both my daughters have dual nationality so A. is trying hard to make sure that they get an upbringing that reflects both their family origins, both spanish and from planet neptune.

i always respected that, in fact, i encouraged it, i always liked going to Spain and as a sociologist i was fascinated by its people, culture and history.

Spain has a unique modern history to that of the rest of western europe. It never took part in the second world war and the spanish base most of their recent identity on the result of the spanish civil war, won by Franco in 1938, shortly before the break out of the second world war.

Prior to Franco's victory Spain had for the first time elected a reformist left-wing government popular with the people. Franco's uprising crushed spains elected government and set up a dictatorship.

Franco was a small awkward looking man, and i suspect alot of his ideology was based around his own inability to compete with better looking men. He outlawed public shows of affection, as he had never got any when young? his wife stayed with him for the duration of his premiership, but his daughter was always rumoured to be adopted and i have suspicions that Franco just couldn't get it up. He hated people who had healthy sex lives.

In fact, wasn't hitler much the same? a slightly strange looking man (not THAT small though, which is a common misconception, hitler was actually around 5'9" so pretty average for a man of his generation). The only woman hitler ever really let himself desire was his neice Geli, and she commited suicide. Eva Brown was around for along time but did they really love each other? i doubt it. Hitler couldn't love anyone, neither could Franco, thats why they ended up the way they did.

Both had strange fantasy ideas about what women should be, innocent, beautiful and compliant. Hardly reality is it. I think they both wanted to control women and they failed.

anyway, Spain is probably due to Franco's repressive regime, a very conformist place, and although the young generations are slowly moving away from the past, when you walk down the main street in Santander, you would do well to spot a single old woman in trousers, or a single old man who was not wearing a chequed shirt and chinos. They all look the same, i suppose they were taught that when they were young, and nobody has ever stood up against it. Wierdos from planet neptune don't really fit in very well in spain.

This type of repression, freedom of expression, is perhaps only marginally better than the muslim world and i think spending a lifetime conforming to Franco's bitter ideas, has led to many feelings of bitterness and resentment amongst the old generation in Spain. Old people in Santander STARE at you. They look at you like you are filth if you are not wearing what they think is correct. I can think of 5 or 6 seperate occasions over the last month when that has happend to me. It's very intimidating, and if you come from a country where its considered rude to stare (britain) and combine that with lots of insecurity complexes and general low self esteem (me) it can really take some getting over. Yeah i've felt like total shit on many occasions there.

A. says that this is normal and you get used to it when you are born there. I can't get used to people staring nastily at me. Its horrible and it makes me feel like i am worthless. Its so hard to look them back in the eye, and im the type of person that avoids peoples stares when i can.

there are things i like about spain, but this isn't one of them.

Feminism hasn't yet hit Spain and as a young(ish) woman you have to be careful not to let them get to you. Some men in spain, especially older men, think it is their god given right to make you feel like shit. Its not just older men though, younger men have a very low opinion of women, i was out walking one night and it was a nice evening, one of those when it's warm and you can hear crickets singing in the background, when two young guys walk past me, stare at me and one of them whispers something to the other and they both laugh. They then walk on and shout something at a young girl across the road. Morons, they like feeling powerful by making women feel afraid and scared.

The only irony is that if you knew anything about Spain, you'd think these two guys were the typical spanish moron, who next week will be in the obituaries column of the local paper, having died in a motorcycle accident, crushed under some car somewhere, driven by another gilipollas as if he was fernando alonso in a residential area full of children playing. Macho man is alive and well in spain, and he will mow you down if you don't get out of his way.

they are so clever aren't they? until they are dead of course..

Spain needs some kind of feminine resistance to this, how far it goes is something that needs to be watched. Macho man in spain needs a leash putting round his neck.

I am aware of the evils of feminism in Britain, and english men are sometimes so ridiculously feminised, but something has to be done in Spain. Feminists are scary, but they normally aren't behind the wheel of a 10 ton truck trying to mow you down as you drive down the autopista.

the thought of how bad it must be in the muslim world is even more scary, but then who cares.. im not going to live in tehran anytime soon i hope.

i would complain wouldn't i though? im a woman and i dont understand that men are 'slaves to testosterone' do i? hahaha i dont care, it doesn't give you the right to ruin my life does it.

thats what i was told by a friend of my fathers recently, that men are 'slaves to testosterone'!

yeah, thats probably why he has 5 kids to 3 different mothers. such a slave isn't he.

anyway,

im pleased to be back for now, and my hair always looks much better in england. It gets so greasy in spain and looks like i've been licked and spat out by a cow.

oh yeah and i've lost 1kg! that has to be good news.

see you soon im going on holiday!!

im going to spain and i'll be back in about a month!

bye bye hope it doesn't rain too much!

xx

hola cariño

no se si leeras eso cariño, pero lo escribo por si acaso te sientes soli..

eres mi amor
mi mundo y
mi dios

y ya nos vemos dentro de un par de dias!

mis padres me han tratado bien estos dias, por fin
no puedo esperar comer una napolitana al lado tuyo

enseguida estoy alli..

d. xx