I can't pinpoint exactly when it started. It must have been a few years ago. Maybe it had to do with the difficulties of finding public transportation and gasoline for my vehicle.
What is certain is that one fine day I started to leave the house less, sometimes I didn't even go for a short walk around the neighborhood.
I could tell I was locked up because at nightfall I could see the padlock on the gate in place, no one had removed it, which meant that neither my wife nor I had left the house all day.
That has never really bothered me. I am one of those who can spend many hours at home without feeling the presence of boredom. I have the facility to find many distracting tasks without feeling that time has become slower than usual.
But while I may not be as affected by the confinement, the reality is that I don't live alone, I share my life with my wife. And although she too can spend a lot of time indoors, she does miss going outdoors. So every chance she gets, she finds some reason to get me out of my isolation.
A few days ago, one of those opportunities to go out and see the world presented itself.
Our daughter had been waiting months for an opportunity to move. She lives in a town in the south of Spain, a very touristic area where getting a room or an apartment for rent is extremely difficult.
With the boom in tourism there has been a huge distortion in the real estate market in the area. People who have houses or rooms available prefer to rent them by the day to tourists. That way they earn much more and their homes deteriorate less. There are very few who decide to continue renting for a long period of time to local people.
My daughter already had a deadline for the place where she was staying, the days went by and she could not find a place to move. In the end she was not going to stay in the street since her brother, who lives nearby, has enough space to house her. But going back to her brother's place would be a step backwards. She had been living with him for several years. And after getting her own space she wanted to continue to enjoy her independence.
In every Whatsapp call it was inevitable to feel her anguish. She had almost accepted the idea of going back to her brother's when she met a former co-worker. While having a coffee this friend told her that an acquaintance of hers would have a spare room for a few months, the person who lived there had won a scholarship to study abroad.
With the phone number in hand and her hopes high, my daughter called the number. In fact they confirmed that the room would be available for at least four months, until the beginning of spring, after that there was no word.
That same night my daughter called us to tell us the great news. My wife and I saw each other's faces and there was no need to say anything. We both knew it was time for another celebration.
The next afternoon we went out to do some shopping and took the opportunity to stop at a coffee shop that we like very much, they prepare excellent coffee with milk and have a good selection of sweets and snacks to go with it.
For the moment my daughter and we are more relaxed. When spring arrives we may have to look for a new place to stay, hopefully not. She likes the new place very much.
But from here to there are many days away, in the meantime my wife and I will be looking for other reasons to celebrate in the way we like best, going out to enjoy a good coffee in one of our favorite coffee shops.
Thanks for your time.
Images edited in Photoshop.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version).
Logo creado por @themanualbot
