If I’m honest, sometimes I wonder if this was the right decision to make. I had a job that made me feel happy and fulfilled. I had the opportunity to share my time and knowledge with children and I would like to think that I’ve made an impression on them.

I lived with my mother and two sisters, I’m the eldest and I was very involved in my little sister’s life, I was like a second mother to her.

So, when I wasn’t working, preparing things for my job or studying, I looked after my sister.

I didn’t have much time for myself and I’m glad that I didn’t because it means that I didn’t have the time to think.

Here, I am a volunteer and I feel like I have lost my purpose, my power and even my identity.

I have to wait for approval before and after doing something, not just for the work that I want to do or I am currently doing,  I cannot also decide about other aspects of my life.

I also feel useless, for example right now, why am I writing this ? Because I have been asked to do so, but I don’t see the purpose of it.

I had these big expectations because I had heard so much about this ESC volunteering, how it changed the lives of so many youngsters, it helped them grow and find purpose, some could make friends or find a couple, some stayed because of that or because they found a job.

I’ve been here for two months but it feels like a lifetime, the conception of time is different and I think it is because of the many different things and all the emotions that I can experience in just one day. I am always exhausted.

Finally, I can count myself lucky because I like the place and the people, life with my roommates is easy and the workers are very nice and helpful.

I’ve found in one of the volunteers a person who I am happy to share the working hours and the free time. Someone who I can trust and I feel confident to talk to when something happens good or bad and that I think it is what keeps me going, the fact of knowing that I am not alone and I don’t feel lonely. Because sometimes we are not alone, in fact, we can be surrounded by lots of people and feel lonely and we can be alone an don’t feel lonely because we can enjoy our own company.

I am proud to say that after some time of being alone and lonely I learnt how to enjoy on my own but that’s a different story.

I have sessions with a therapist that I don’t have to pay for which is an amazing  resource. I find them very important because I can release my emotions and also get some guidance.

And my sending oragnisation is always checking on me.

To sum up, being here is not a bed of roses, I can feel up and down at given times but I feel supported by many different people, from different countries, with different backgrounds and lifestyles. I don’t see the people I am sharing my life with here as strangers at all, they are becoming little by little part of my deformed, new family.

If this doesn’t sound kind of cool, I don’t know what it does.

Wheel of Emotions, Robert Plutchik.

Saray Iglesias, ESC Volunteer