How to Love a Place That Breaks Your Heart

Or...Postcards from a Midlife Elsewhere.

I'm standing in my chilly bathroom applying the orange blossom perfume I bought only the week before in a tiny boutique on a side street in Seville, Spain.

I'm watching the rain streak down the window pane (because, of course, it's raining), attempting without success to use my olfactory time machine. The scent wafts up occasionally, but it's sweet, sugary, and utterly unconvincing. It does no justice to the reality of wandering cobbled streets at dusk with actual orange blossoms overhead, parrots squawking in the trees, and the constant timpani of carriage horses echoing off ancient walls, a soundtrack to our lazy days.

But here I am, huffing perfume like it's emotional smelling salts because the alternative is admitting that I'm a fifty-something woman who chooses to live in a place that breaks her heart a little bit every winter (And yes, I said chooses. Because I could live anywhere, and I choose Scotland.)

The thing is, Scottish winters aren't even that cold. For years, I stumbled through the brown snow and icy patches on the brutal avenues of a New York winter (the wind whooshing like a high-speed train between the buildings and snatching my breath away). Scottish weather is practically balmy by comparison. But it's the dark that gets me. The sun sets at 2:30 in the afternoon and doesn't show its face again until 9 a.m. the next day. If it's overcast (which, let's be honest, it often is. Even though Dundee is the sunniest city in Scotland, it's still Scotland), you can spend an entire day sitting in what feels like perpetual dusk. After the thrill of Hogmanay settles down, there are eight weeks of darkness, and I start to understand why some love relationships require seasonal intermissions.

So when I googled "warmest place in Europe in February" and Seville popped up on the screen, I may have said "thank God" out loud.

Because Seville? Seville is where the oranges grow wild on every street corner, heavy and abundant and completely forbidden to pick...

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you about the first time we found this city.

It was years ago, and it was our first trip together. Mark and I had flown to Spain (he from DC and I from NJ), met up in Madrid, rented a car, and headed South. We'd toured the magnificent Alhambra, listening to the stories the walls had to share. We'd wandered the streets of Cordoba at 2:00 a.m. after a flamenco show and stumbled into a gathering of vampires (not kidding; these people were cosplaying vampires).

And then we were in spectacular Seville. We left our hotel every morning to drink coffee and people-watch in a tiny cafe off the main square (Plaza de la Encarnación). I remember looking out over the maze of terracotta rooftops with an unbroken view of the Seville cathedral. An awe-inspiring structure that is the burial place of Christopher Columbus and has an imposing bell tower called the 'Giralda' that was originally the minaret of Almohad Mosque (it was built with a circular ramp in the interior so you can journey to the top on horseback).

"I could live here," I said, probably with that dreamy certainty that moving and settling abroad is as easy as packing the right clothes (oh my heroine…it’s not!)

Seville planted itself in my chest that day, a seed that kept growing without me even watering it.

Fast-forward twenty years, and there I was again in that same cafe, watching the "Giralda" chime the hour. But this time, it wasn't wanderlust driving me south. It was self-preservation. When you've chosen to build your life somewhere that dims your light for four months of the year, you have to negotiate with the seasons (“Okay, autumn, we're escaping to The Bahamas this time, please hold back on your hurricanes”).

This time, Seville wasn't possibility, it was medicine. A temporary antidote to the ache of loving a place that doesn't always love you back.

And boy, did it work.

Within days, I was myself again, enjoying all the treasures Seville has to offer. Unique gifts like the abundance of oranges weighing down every branch (so many because it's illegal to pick them). In Scotland, oranges live in bowls and daydreams. In Seville, they’re bursting on the stones.

Mark broke the rules, of course, and risked a ticket because the curiosity was killing him. What did they taste like? On a quiet side street, he pulled one from a lower branch and sank his thumbnail into the waxy skin. The juice sprayed, and the sweet orange scent filled the air, but unfortunately, it did not translate into the flavor. As the bitter taste hit his tongue, his wince was comical and was all I needed to refuse a bit as he pushed the orange toward me. We later learned that due to the fruit's bitterness and possible contamination from traffic pollutants, the oranges are mostly for show.

An evening tradition developed as we discovered the secrets of the city. Anchovy bar hopping. Seville is filled with gorgeous restaurants, from high-end havens to local dives (but your Sevillian local dive will likely have ancient painted tile floors and walls that will blow your mind). In many places, you'll find a shelf behind the bar filled with stacks of fish tins: anchovies, sardines, mackerel, etc. I'm an anchovy lover. Like, could eat them every day, lover. Order a tiny tin, and they crack it open and plop it down on the counter with a plate and a stack of bread (and because it's Europe, there is often even gluten-free bread for me). Oh, the joy of fishing those little fishies out of the tin and letting the salt and oil pour over my waiting tongue. Delish.

A visit to the Plaza de España was a long but satisfying walk. The plaza is a local park and treasure, an imposing semi-circular monument-like building flanked by two towers and surrounded by a shallow canal crossed by four bridges. The plaza is surrounded by a lush park with shady trails, nooks, and crannies begging to be picnic spots. In the shadows of the plaza on the stone walkways, roving flamenco dancers toss a piece of plywood onto the ground and get to it. If you ever feel uptight or holding onto some emotion you can't release, watch some flamenco dancing. The guitar, the clapping rhythms, the haunting voices, the dancing. It gets right into your chest like a crowbar and splits you open.

We walked the city a thousand times, often stopping beside the river to watch the water. The weather perfect. A soft-serve ice cream melting over sticky fingers.

But here's the thing about prescribed paradise: it makes you hyper-aware of what you've left behind.

I'd be sitting in a sun-soaked plaza, watching parrots swarm the orange trees as the light turned golden, and I'd think about home.

The friends I was missing. The dinners happening without me. The life I'd temporarily abandoned in pursuit of vitamin D and emotional equilibrium.

Scotland calls to me even when I'm basking in Sevillian perfection. The pull is visceral and constant.

It's a feeling that is beautiful but bitter, just like the exhaust-dusted oranges. I’m in love with a place that requires me to constantly depart. I have to go away to remember why I belong there. I have to miss it to love it properly because the leaving makes the coming back sweeter.

I'm constantly asking myself, "Are you the woman who needs February escapes to survive Scottish weather? Or are you the woman who needs Scottish weather to fully appreciate your escapes?"

Maybe both. Maybe that's the point.

I think about this when I'm home again, with my tacky orange perfume and my rain-streaked windows. I'm listening to the squawks of rowdy seagulls (not parrots but just as loud and demanding of attention), and thinking about how in Seville the sweet scent of oranges permeates the air, wafting up from mashed and splattered skins littering the paving stones beneath.

That's the thing about returning from self-imposed exile. The place you chose (and seriously, the place that always chooses you back) looks different when you return. But it also feels like home.

This woman (me) who craves light but chooses Scotland anyway isn't broken. She's complicated. She knows that sometimes staying means learning to leave.

The parrots are probably gathering right now in Seville's orange trees, their green wings catching the last light.

Back home in Scotland, in March, it's already dark, and dinner is still hours away.

I roll on a little more perfume.

Just enough to remember that spring is coming. Just enough to hold me until I can experience Scotland's summer version of light.

Despite everything, it is the only version that has ever felt like mine.

This is a Postcard from a Midlife Elsewhere, a journal of what it means to belong somewhere else…again and again. It’s about relocation, reinvention, and home through stories, snapshots, and reflections from a life lived across borders.

Every place has a doorway. Every midlife has a threshold.
I write about moments that mark the shift from who I was… to who I’m becoming.
Maybe you’ll recognize the terrain.

If you’re ready to turn your own moment into a map — start here.
I build Pocket Quests™ at Call for Heroines: story-based micro-adventures that help you rewrite your life in real-time.