The Expat Book Club in Mijas

The first time I stepped into that small café for an expat book club, I nearly turned around.

(A year ago, I would have done!)

Bryan always teased me about my reluctance to put myself out there, my tendency to retreat into solitude when things felt overwhelming.  

But something inside me is shifting. Something nudging me toward connection instead of retreat.

I exhale and step forward.  

The café is warm, filled with the scent of coffee and pastries and the hum of conversation. I hesitate at the door for a moment to scan the room as if searching for a familiar face that doesn’t exist.  

Then, I see the group.

Over by the window is a small circle of people laughing, chatting, and with books stacked on the table beside them. They glance up and smile.

I exhale and move forward. 

They welcome me easily these strangers with a shared displacement activity. A woman from France, a couple from Argentina, a retired teacher from England who offers me a warm smile and an understanding nod when I falter over introductions.  

We talk about books, of course.

(And gardening!)

But the conversation moved on to the about the oddities of Spanish bureaucracy, and about missing home. There is something comforting in their easy camaraderie and the way we all understand what it means to be between places.  

It has been a long time since I have felt like I belonged anywhere. While this isn’t quite home, it is something close to it. 

Afterwards, I walk through the narrow streets of my adopted town, feeling something unfamiliar: lightness. For so long, grief has been my quiet companion like a shadow I didn’t know how to step out of.  

But here I glimpse a version of myself I haven’t seen in a while. It is a version that laughs easily, that feels less like a visitor.

Back home, I check on my Irish garden.

The foxgloves are standing tall.

The shamrocks have begun to spread, stubborn in their defiance of foreign soil. I smile. Bryan would have loved to see me trying and reaching for something beyond the grief.  

Perhaps, like these plants, I am learning how to thrive in a new place.

And as I pour a glass of wine and sit on my small balcony overlooking the city, I realise that this—this moment of contentment, of quiet joy—is something I hadn’t expected to find.

Much like my garden I have managed to grow. 

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