I’m laid back on the bed of Houston’s Airport Holiday Inn at 10:16 pm. We were supposed to be half-way between North America and the British Isles at the moment. But as the priest and spiritual leader of this trip said: “We’re on God’s time now.”
Spot the priests?
To preface, I am not at all religious. I was raised Catholic, and as such, consider myself a recovering Catholic if anything. However, my mom is practically in the running to be beatified and canonized. She goes to church daily – literally – and participates in the Catholic community as much as she can as an extremely introverted individual. After work, she takes sick and elderly members of the church communion and has recently become a lector at certain masses.
Totally optimistic as we started out on the bus this morning. What could possibly go wrong?
Yeah, she’s kinda into the whole religion thing. It’s her whole world. Even though she and I couldn’t be more different, I try to meet her where she is. So, when she said there was a trip to France she decided to go on with the Catholic church, and said religion be damned (lol) and threw in my chips to join her. I have to admit, it’s exciting to see her excited to travel to a new country. Although it doesn’t change our inherent clashes, the opportunity to bond over something I have loved for so long was too sweet to pass up.
Something cool about this trip is that its destinations are off the beaten path compared to the typical tourist attractions in France. Still, they are attractions, albeit religious ones. Our itinerary includes a flight to Toulouse, a bus ride to Lourdes – a village home to the Basilica built where a young girl claimed to see the Virgin Mary – in the South of France, a mere hour from the Spanish border, in view of the Pyrenees mountains. Can you imagine the geography? Then we will be turning around and going to the opposite side of France and visiting Baalon (after anchoring ourselves in Paris first, I presume since it’s about 4 hours away and Lourdes is over 11). From Paris we will also visit Normandie, Rouen, and Caen. I brought my Sony camera along – I’m already swooning imagining the landscapes and small city charm.
All of the quaintness of our pilgrimage steals the attention away from the uprisings, protests, and widespread unrest in France right now. Images of vandalization have been circulating online, yet not a soul in the group of 53 pilgrims has mentioned it. In a totally non-morbid way, I am looking forward to seeing Paris for myself in this moment. I would protest alongside teachers and students if I could. But it will suffice being an eyewitness to a key moment in the age of the Technocrats. In the States we could learn from the French in their unflinching struggle for social change, although the vandalism and looting come as uncomfortable consequences to just how wide the gap between rich and poor has become.
In an attempt to practice my French on tiktok, I mentioned in a video that I was going to France and received several comments warning about the violence of the protests from French people. I’m aware it may also come to change the experience into something even more unpleasant than the daily masses and rosary praying, but somehow I feel drawn to it all the same.
But before I can even think of contemplating all this…we need to get to France. Which brings me back to the present moment. How did we get here, in a free hotel room with meal vouchers labeled “Distressed passengers”?
Our day started out at 9:00 am waiting in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Apparently, we were not the only pilgrimage departing today. There were at least 3 other busses appearing in staggered intervals to pick up different groups, all heading to Houston airport. Later we would find out that although those groups were going on longer trips – to France and Italy or Italy and Greece on a cruise – the four groups with different colored lanyards had overlapping schedules.
Our charter bus pulled up at 9:31, and we slowly filed on. Everything about today was slow. The ride was uneventful – we were subjected to a rosary at the end just before getting to the airport (well, I was subjected…) but all together the trip only took about 2 hours. No traffic. Blue skies and perfect weather. Everything seemed so perfect.
We checked in. More lines. More waiting. 53 people. 3 lines. Airport security was a breeze, but that was the moment when I looked down the row of people lined up to be scanned that I saw the sea of lanyards of different colors. Our group’s is yellow. We were instructed to mark our bags and keep our lanyards with our nametags on to signal what group we were in. Finally I understood why.
Our flight was supposed to leave at 3:50 pm. About an hour into our wait, we got the delay notification. 2 more hours to wait. No big deal. Waiting. Then, the announcement came while I was off getting my obligatory airport pretzel – cancelled. Our flight to London Heathrow, the first leg of the journey, had been cancelled due to technical issues with the plane.
Someone said this was expected by the airline and that they were prepared to return our bags to us. But if you ask me, it couldn’t have been totally expected because then the question of how 53 people would be put on another flight to the same destination would work (plus all of the other people that were going to fly with us).
It was organized chaos. We were herded…slowly…to the check-in counter. We waited some more to find out if our new flight would leave today or tomorrow. It was 5 pm by that time. By 5:30 pm we had grabbed our luggage and went up to look for the shuttle. No dice, we were given a free hotel room for the night and put on standby, our new flight time unknown. We were herded down to the subway/tram after finding out our shuttle’s pick-up zone was in a different terminal. Walking because 53 people don’t fit on a single tram that passes every several minutes.
Waiting when we got there around 6, until about 15 minutes later we were loaded. The times belie how long the wait times felt. The shuttle was cramped, and it was hard to squeeze into our backseats, but after taking around 4,000 steps just circling the airport, it felt like the most comfortable seat I had ever sat in.
6:30 to 7, we waited in line to get our room key and – yay – meal voucher for dinner, breakfast, and lunch – after all, our new flight won’t be leaving until 9:40 pm. A full day and a half of travel, lost. But that’s to be expected. We’re living in a time of contradictions, where we’ve never had access to such convenience and yet human error – and technological error, if we’re honest – are unavoidable and frustrating.
It took about 30 minutes to be seated and waited on, because once again, traveling with a huge group sucks, especially in situations like this…. The hotel and restaurant staff are doing their best, and so even though the food was pretty mid – at least it was free! Joyful heart! That’s what we pilgrims are told to maintain. And if ever we all felt like we were being tested by God…it’s now.
Nothing beats free dessert!
So, that ends the first log of this trip. Am I looking forward to the next setback for The Plot? Maybe…not. I would love to be able to sit back and just chill while traveling for once. I’ll try to write a small bit recapping each day in real time since I feel like writing when my thoughts are fresh is best – we will see if I can put aside my perfectionism to bring you “good enough” content. Stay tuned. ❤
I have a confession to make. If you’ve been following my blog for a while then you know that I’ve made a lot of posts talking about my goals and aspirations for the future. A lot. I’ve always been goal oriented. I’m rarely satisfied with anything though I have learned that for my own mental well-being, I better try to be. Perfection is an illusion. A mirage. And if we keep chasing it for too long, we’re bound to crack. It’s just that simple.
That being said, even though my goals have stayed pretty consistent (get a masters/return to school at some point, develop a career that allows me the freedom to dedicate myself to my true passions: learning languages and traveling, and settle down in another country permanently; get my own place, put down new roots), somehow reaching them or simply feeling satisfied in the steps I’ve taken toward reaching them hasn’t been easy.
A part of me doesn’t understand why. I’ve always been a decisive person. I decided to go to a school for gifted students in high school; I got accepted. I decided to study Spanish and become fluent. I found a way. I decided to move to Colombia. I decided to leave. Upon reflection, some goals are harder to define than my simple impulses to travel and be free. And until they are defined, I cannot be single-mindedly driven towards them.
Now, in my second year of using my parents’ house as a home base, I keep asking myself why I feel stuck here. To be honest, I am so happy with some things in my life. I chose to challenge myself and learn as much as I can. I left a toxic work environment. I decided to put my health (mental and physical) first, and I have. I went home to give my family the chance I denied them in my 20’s to form a meaningful relationship. Yet sometimes I still feel like a failure for doing this.
You see, from high school, I had made up my mind. I didn’t want to stay in this shit town (*cue angsty emo/pop punk “I hate this town” mashup*). Being around my family stripped me of my identity and made me feel like I didn’t know myself or feel secure. I never felt like I belonged. I had a very traumatic time growing up here. The 2000’s were rough, man.
So, I chose a college in New Orleans, my favorite city in the state. I moved to California after I graduated. I hit a wall there and that pushed me to move to Colombia, which had been my goal from the beginning — moving to a Latin American country. Colombia just so happened to choose me.
All the time, I was avoiding moving back home at all costs, but financially speaking, I struggled a lot in California. I couldn’t afford to get a Master’s right out of college. I couldn’t afford to pay rent without putting myself in uncomfortable living situations (and boy did I have some weird roommate experiences that are much funnier in retrospect).
On top of that, I also hold a lot of academic trauma. My school years, from that LSMSA (Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts) to college, were extremely stressful. I always filled my schedule because I genuinely enjoy learning, but my anxiety was through the ceiling. I needed to do it all, and I put immense pressure on myself to succeed, to be a straight-A student (fun fact: the only class I made a B in was Latin American Political Science).
When I succeeded, I was on the brink of panic before doing public speaking of any kind. I managed, but at a huge mental cost. At the root, I believe I had (and have) a fear of being seen — be it positively or negatively.
Fast-forward back to the present. I’m sitting in a room lent to me by my parents. I could get my own place, but what would the point be if I spend most of my time traveling? The thing that makes my life feel meaningful. Why trade that money for a house that will likely be destroyed by a hurricane or uproot to a place I am not truly interested in? I haven’t decided where I want to build the rest of my life. I’m still stuck in the place in between.
It’s a matter of cultural perspective, you see. In parts of East Asia, there’s even a term for adults who continue living with their parents instead of settling down: “Parasite Singles.”
No, it’s not adults trying to rejoin with their mothers and return to the womb. Yeah, surprised me too. Part of the definition as I’ve heard it is that they choose to spend the money they save by living with parents to, you guessed it: travel or otherwise give themselves the life they couldn’t afford living on their own.
I felt so called out, not gonna lie. Still, this is a cultural thing — in Colombia, most people live with their parents until they decide to form their own families or move to another city. Honestly, in this economy, could you even blame them? I’m not the only one that makes their living in an unconventional way: not salaried, technically freelance, trying to carve my own path. In Latin America, it’s viewed as practical to live with family, and everyone helps out. This follows with how family and community-focused Colombian culture is in particular.
But, in the US? People assume I’m younger than I am — in a way that is not flattering, to be honest. Because seriously, what kind of 30 year old lives at home? It’s hard to separate myself from the judgement I know exists in this culture. My parents have expressed they’re happy to have me back, but the narrative I was plugged into was something of a prodigal daughter.
I’ll be honest. I have wanted to run so many times. Just throw a dart at a map and go there. I have never been strong enough to fully disregard what other people think about me. And that brings me back to what I believe has been holding me back in so many aspects: my insecurity. I recognize that I don’t feel like I’m enough — good enough, smart enough, talented enough, hardworking enough, successful enough. You name it.
Is it true? It’s what my dark half tells me, the way I’ve felt ever since I was little. I look around and can’t stop comparing myself to others. It makes it really hard for me to think clearly about what I want. It twists everything inside me to should’s instead of true convictions. Unfortunately, the last time I was in therapy, I felt no closer to figuring out how to separate it all. I think I might need more than talk therapy. But that’s for another post.
The confession is: this is my reality. I look like I’m living the dream. And in some ways, I am. But I also have all of these demons weighing on me, the pressure I feel and impose on myself. I feel like I’m not reaching my full potential, I feel afraid, I feel uncertain about the future. Untethered. And it’s been 2 years now. I thought I would have figured this out sooner.
I wish I could wrap this all up with a bow, but I decided to be vulnerable and expose my true experiences living with my parents. This is not where I want to be, and it’s not where I’m going to stay. As much as I love my family, there was some truth in what I felt when I was young — being here is stifling. Even so, I’m glad I came home. I’m glad I reconnected with friends — I’m grateful to know that I have so many great people in my life that are ready to welcome me back anytime I return. There may be no future here, but I have tried to use the present and live in it fully.
Focusing on self-development and discipline, really committing myself to my projects and passions — that is what living with my parents has given me. In a time when the world is full of instability and uncertainty, I’m happy to know I can come back whenever I want. I’m equally relieved to know that I also have a home in Colombia and the freedom to “court” other countries until I find the home of my future, a place where I can invest and hopefully become a homeowner one day.
Will some people misunderstand what I’m doing now? No doubt. There are always multiple sides to every story, and our lives are fuller than any single, simple narrative angle. I guess I’m also still learning to care less about what other people think, to define my identity separate from the expectations. Some things take time to sink in. But I promise you if I know anything, it’s that everything is transient. I may not be doing it the normal way, but I am working towards building a future I can be not only proud of, but present in.
My Asia trip began on June 1st when I landed in Incheon International Airport. My friend and I planned to stay 22 days in South Korea, a country neither of us had been to before- and honestly, neither of us did much planning in advance. I was completely open to anything, to exploring as we went. She had a wish list of things she had been wanting to do, and I was happy to be along for the ride.
Little did we know, in the span of the first week, so many life lessons would be learned leaving us with this feeling of: “No way we’ve only been here for a week!” and “Why didn’t we look into this ahead of time??” The overwhelm of planning where to stay and what to see day by day would also take its toll. But looking back, I feel like everything happened the way it should (yes, even the shitty stuff).
A few highlights to show how utterly manic this trip was:
Tried on Hanbok and made a friend from Vietnam on our 2nd full day
Went out for the first time on our 4th day, partied in Itaewon
2 doritos (30 minutes in our 2nd club) later: my phone disappeared
Dealt with heartless bouncers and Korean law enforcement
Got refused service by taxi drivers for not being able to communicate in Korean (even when we were using a translator, they had no patience with us)
Took a tour to the DMZ zone, went down a tunnel into North Korea, and watched people moving around nearest NK city
Experienced the most intense Thai massage ever (not great if you have blisters on your feet, I’ll tell you what)
Took a highspeed train to Busan and Korea’s ancient cultural capital, Gyeongju
Flew to Jeju island, the land of tangerines – where I spent the whole time at the hotel 😦
Went to a clinic for aesthetic and nonaesthetic reasons
Had a summer romance snatched directly from a Kdrama
And the list goes on…
I think you can guess why it feels like I lived a whole life there. The high highs and the low lows, the culture shock you don’t usually feel when you’re a tourist in a country for less than a month (and much less during the first week of your trip).
But thanks to these experiences, I have a lot of stories to tell and lots of advice to give. Yay!
My student put together this cute little timeline of topics mentioned in this post to help keep track of all of the madness – consider it a preview and visual aid 🙂
In this post, I’m going to focus on the shit that happened during my first week in Korea and how I could have avoided it. I’ll have more recommendations and recap facts in another post.
Day 4: The Premature Death of the Honeymoon phase.
I started the day in the best mood, ready to comerme el mundo, do it all. I wore the outfit I had bought at one of the many little clothing stores in Insa-dong the day before, feeling very Korean and cute. I love Asian fashion, the tendency to layer, even in summer.
Ah, sweet summer child… little did I know that this day would end with tears and frustration. This was the breaking point that forced me to see all of the negative in my surroundings all too soon.
I left a piece of me in Seoul — quite literally — and an expensive piece at that.
The only pictures and videos I have of this day were what I uploaded to my IG stories 🥲. A full day, gone — but boy was it a full day.
The few pictures I did take are uploaded and described on my instagram.
We started the day at Gwangjang Market – went to grab lunch, stayed for the shopping.
I felt right at home. The food stalls and tables set up, as well as the variety of shops and booths, reminded me of mercados públicos in any Latin American country. The prices were unbeatable, and we were able to eat real authentic dishes like tteokbokki (too spicy for me 🥲), kimchi, bibimbap, kimbap (my favorite, and not at all to be confused with sushi) and more. Plus, I tried Korean Sprite, Chilsung Cider — loved it! Comparing it to Sprite does not do it justice – the flavor is totally different.
We wandered inside afterward, bought souvenirs, and got a caricature portrait drawn. When we passed the new KAHI location in Gwangjang Market, we were drawn in by the offer of a free color test and product demo. This service is pretty popular in Korea, so I’m glad I got to experience it.
And it was free.99!
Sure, they were selling their products the entire time, but in the gentlest way possible. The girl that did mine was so sweet, and while she didn’t know much English, she used ChatGPT to translate and explain everything. She took off the base of my makeup and primed it using their skincare products before putting on their foundation and showing me which color palate suits me best.
I can’t quite recall what my results were, but I think it was deep warm colors (orange is popping in my head), not exactly what I would pick for myself. I felt skeptical about their methods, but it was still fun.
I ended up buying three products which have become totally essential to my daily skincare routine: the CAXA UP face-lifting device (always wanted one of those and with the discount the price was super attractive), an ampoule serum, and a sunscreen stick — my fave.
After all that shopping, we were ready to take the long trip to the other side of the Han River.
All downhill from there?
The rest of the day was a bit chaotic. I couldn’t help noticing that I was trying to control the outcome of our adventures. Additionally, in some way, my phone was contributing to my stress. I was navigating, scoping out our destinations and the surrounding attractions, looking up places to see if they were open, trying to live our trip to the fullest – all the while searching like crazy for ATMs.
In many aspects, Korea felt more insular than I expected. Global ATMs are not available in every convenience store, specific apps are needed to navigate without getting lost, and even the outlets need an adapter to charge – and lucky me, I forgot my powerbank and my adapter. Before leaving the area, we went around in circles looking for someone that could help me find a global ATM.
We wasted time only to go down to the metro station and realize that some metro kiosks let you refill your T-money card with a credit card. Cash is mostly an essential though, and I didn’t even realize at this point that my debit card runs in the Discover/Diners Plus network which is not common in most countries. Whoops.
My adorable Zoa Tmoney card. Shout-out to GD ❤
Once I reloaded the card, I was good to go. We got to Seongsu 50 minutes+ later by bus and discovered that our destination was out of the question. We needed to book in advance to get into Haus Nowhere – a strange brutalist concept space mixing contemporary art and retail(?) with a strong sci-fi vibe. Plus, there was some sort of private event going on that day. Another reminder: always check two things before committing to a long commute – if the place is open and if entry is limited.
We turned around and headed to Gangnam to check out the Starfield Library without skipping a beat. While lovely, after all of the walking and bus/train hopping we did, being surrounded by books I couldn’t read that basically seemed like decoration was a bit underwhelming. Yes, there were people studying there, and the concept is striking, but it seemed like we were there just to take pictures and leave. It could be that I felt that way because we had crossed the entirety of the COEX mall, a huge, sprawling cluster of buildings with various floors and confusing signage, to find it. Either way, I was beat.
Finally, we said fuck it. We needed a drink.
We got caught in the rain as we left the mall and had to run to a convenience store to buy umbrellas — UV umbrellas, not rain umbrellas. The cashier laughed at us, but honestly, come on. To me it worked just as well, it’s just dual purposed. You can fight me in the comments. 😉
Apparently the one I bought wasn’t made to be water repellent – but you coulda fooled me!
Next stop: Itaewon. We were ready to partayyyy.
Itaewon: the end and the beginning
Itaewon is an absolute shit show after dark. As is expected in a party district full to the rim with young people and tourists covering the sketchy types that take advantage of those spaces…
We went to two clubs: Dawn and the Mansion.
At Dawn, we brought the party, asking the DJ to put on reggaeton to liven things up because honestly, it was DEAD in there. All of the boring pop was undanceable – and not even K-pop was being played. 🙄 Before we left, we had filled the place up with our perreo in the big front window, attracting attention – so much so that they asked us to come back the next day and gave us free drinks.
We were on cloud 9, but it was getting late and we wanted to catch the last train at 12, so we headed out before getting sucked into the Mansion…
We were only there for about 30 minutes. We had our free drink and didn’t even leave our table. But as I would see in the CCTV footage later, I finally took off my phone off my wrist to do some twerking. As we picked up our things to go, I realized my phone was not with my stuff.
How?
I asked the bartender if a phone was turned in. Nothing. He and other staff struck arms across their chests. We dubbed it the “AHHH-NEEE” X of doom (the common sign for “no” in East Asia). I was in total shock. Somebody had managed to scoop it up somehow, right under my nose and out of view of the cameras.
And just like that, the party was over.
Losing my phone in Korea
Thank God for my friend who was with me. If it hadn’t been for her support, the rest of the trip would have been impossible. I couldn’t move my money around and had no way of navigating. Was this the detox I needed? Maybe, but the damage was more than I had expected. Without her, I don’t know what I would’ve done.
My heart was racing. I was in total shock. After asking the staff inside the bar, my first thought was to ask the bouncer what I should do if someone had taken my phone, how the bar handled a missing phone or potential theft on their premises. I struggled to form sentences and leaned on my friend for support, asking if he knew what I should do or had seen anything.
His reaction took me out.
He immediately became defensive. It was not his problem. My friend knows some Korean and picked up on him insulting us, telling us to fuck off basically. I stressed that I just wanted to know what the procedure was and let him know in case he saw something, but in my mental state, I only began to cry harder as he told us to get lost. I stepped away, feeling angry at how helpless I was. As soon as I started walking, the bouncers at neighboring clubs came up to me. I figured they could see face wet with tears, my bloodshot eyes, surely they might be concerned about me.
Nope. They were trying to hand me drink vouchers and persistently attempting to lure us into their clubs. Their eyes registered my pain. Their actions ignored it. I firmly asked one of them where the nearest police station was since that was originally what I hoped the Mansion bouncer might tell me. They pointed to the end of the block. There it was, just across the street.
This isn’t a place where you see Seoul’s kindest face. With so many drunk foreigners acting up every night, I could see the weary faces and negative biases. Still, nothing had prepared me for the treatment I received. I entered the police precinct, a bit calmer, but still desperate for support.
The police were helpful enough. I could sense that this incident was probably a drop in the ocean for them, but they still dutifully gathered all the information I could provide. I reported the theft and tried to locate my phone, to no avail because without a safe device, I couldn’t get past the MFA.
Our only complaint was the lack of genuine empathy. I was practically despondent and had no way to call a cab or direct us back to our apartment. They noticed we had not left and basically told us we should leave, that they would be in touch. I tried to ask for help calling a cab. I was stressed knowing we wouldn’t be able to communicate easily with the taxi drivers… They said they couldn’t. Just…couldn’t. So, we went on the corner and waved our arms until we flagged them down and got turned down repeatedly.
Korea is not for beginners.
I thought I had done enough research. I knew about Naver and T-money. I knew I would need cash. But I still wasn’t prepared for how limiting my bank card’s network is there, how tricky dealing with taxi drivers can be, or just how dependent I would be on having the right apps.
Google Maps does not work, so you better download Naver. Naver is slow sometimes, especially when everyone in Seoul is probably using it at once. Uber is limited, so Kakao T needs to be set up with your Korean number stat. But then they may still cancel or take you to the wrong destination because the gps and locations are not so precise.
You can hail a cab, but most will not bother with a translator app, so expect to be put out if you don’t have the location ready and zoomed in — in Korean — on the map for them to see immediately. Taxi drivers aren’t known for their patience, but this was still the worst experience I ever had communicating with them, and I’ve dealt with taxi drivers in Paris (yikes).
I know taxi drivers in general are a tough demographic, but the amount that we were yelled at was unbelievable. They weren’t willing to listen to or read from the translator app when we tried to communicate with them. In our three weeks there, I can recall only three drivers who were actually friendly, and two of them weren’t in Seoul.
You’re also more likely to be ignored on the street if you have big luggage like we did. By week 2, both of us had 2 full rolling suitcases and 2 carry-ons, plus our backpacks and purses. Moving to a new accommodation was a nightmare. By our last week back in Seoul we made sure to stay in one place.
Another tip: make sure you bring an adapter for outlets in Korea. I had no idea those were different despite all my research.
We live and learn. But don’t learn the hard way. Don’t be like us.
The Comparison I couldn’t help but keep making (sorry): Japan vs. Korea
I struggled not to compare Korea to the other Asian countries I’d been to. Maybe that’s not fair, but it did bring me to some interesting conclusions. At the time, I only had Japan to compare it to. Now, I would say it was trickier to navigate than Thailand also.
In terms of culture, I knew that Korea is a highly competitive society, more individualistic (in SOME ways — not in all, like fashion, for example) than Japan. But I didn’t know just how different the hospitality standards were.
My advice is not to expect it to be like Japan – in every sense. It is its own country shaped by a unique history and identity.
The negative side of the inevitable comparison is the disparity between expectation and reality. My experiences in Japan have been colored by the fact that there has always seemed to be someone around willing to help a foreigner. Regardless of language barrier.
Although my Korean was too nonexistent to help much (at least I can get by in Japanese), when I tried, people were not terribly receptive. Much less fake “impressed.” No sugar coating here. I felt like I was inconveniencing people who I asked for help. When I did, the results were not so great.
Perhaps I was a bit spoiled. Japan seems to be more equipped to help tourists (even in Tokyo), while in Seoul, despite English being more widely spoken, general helpfulness and friendliness were not common from strangers. Most people are just trying to get by in their own chaotic worlds, and I can empathize with that. It’s just something to keep in mind.
Travel on Hard Mode
So, for 2 weeks, I lived like a tourist in the 90’s, before smartphones and information at our fingertips. What were the positives? I started writing – in a notebook, the old-fashioned way. On the train, while everyone was staring at their screens and doomscrolling, I was jotting down messy (practically illegible) notes about what I had done that day.
My humblest moment >.< most of my phrases were wrong, but I was trying!
If I needed directions, I would ask someone or look it up on my computer and write them down. If I needed to remember common or specific words in Korean, or I learned or heard a new word, I would add it to a list in my notebook. On the metro the last week, I was reading the train lines and station names. Did I get lost? Sure. Did I butcher the Korean language? Often.
But I found that I was able to survive without my phone. Hell, people had survived without them for ages before the 2000’s. The experience made me realize just how dependent we are on technology for everything.
I joked saying I was traveling on hard mode, but I made the choice to do so with the sincere hope that the Korean police would be able to track down my phone. I got called into the station to review the cctv footage, I went back to Itaewon and asked if any phones had been turned in, and I practically prayed a novena – but it was no good. My Samsung S23 was gone for good.
I got a new phone — an A17 budget phone from the Samsung store in Seoul, tax-free — the last full day of my stay in Korea. It was a downgrade, but… the price was right, all things considered.
The picture quality is not the same. I couldn’t recover notes I had taken and pictures from the entire last day when I had my phone. This drove home another important point: BACKUP your phones, especially when traveling.
Seoul, My Soul
So… did Seoul steal my soul?
Well, it definitely stole my phone… as well as quite a bit of my patience. But it also taught me some valuable lessons. Oh, why must I always be forced to learn the hard lessons in life? I guess so you, dear reader, don’t have to!
Would I go back? Somehow, the answer is yes. Even after everything went wrong, I still look back at Korea and think: what an experience.
And there’s more where that came from. Stay tuned for my breakdown of where we stayed, what other parts of Korea we visited, and more lessons learned the hard way!
If you follow my blog, you should know by now that I’m very candid. I don’t just share my travel tips and destinations. I also share my life, my insights, my failures, and my revelations.
3 weeks ago exactly, I came back to Colombia with great expectations. There was a lot to look forward to: a birthday, a baptism, and a wedding. Wow, all that was missing was the irony of a funeral. And, in a metaphorical sense, that’s what I got.
But first, some context. The first week of January this year whilst sitting on a plane minding my own business, I met someone. I fell asleep on him, to be more exact. Snored and drooled on him. And felt completely mortified. Not because I thought anything would happen with this person, but because I would never want someone to invade my space, and there I was, all up in a stranger’s grill. Looking disgusting.
All the same, I was exhausted because that was day following a night sleeping in the Atlanta airport. I had woken up after about 4 hours of sleep and groggily taken my flight to Florida, then got on the next plane to Cartagena with the intention of making up for the sleep I lost.
When I finally came out of it (after the plane landed and abruptly jolted me awake), I realized something bewildering in the state I was in: my earbud had fallen out of my right ear. The same ear that had been leaning against the guy on my right. Now, I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I tried to look around as casually as possible, but when it wasn’t in my seat or by my feet or anywhere around me, I started panicking.
That’s when my neighbor spoke up. He helped me find the earbud, and we started talking organically. That never happens. My first thought was: How can I make sure this conversation doesn’t turn into awkward small talk? And before I knew it, he was telling me about the sabbatical he’d taken for his mental health, and I was sharing the similar experience I had when I decided to leave Colombia.
There was a transparency, an understanding. A spark. As we got off the plane, I started walking slowly to not cut off our conversation. When finally we split up, I couldn’t help but wonder if I should have given him my instagram – and as if he had read my mind, when he got out of the bathroom, he came back to the line (his line was shorter because he didn’t have to go through immigration) and asked me for just that.
Random point of interest: Colombian immigration now expects you to provide verbal confirmation of where you will be staying while in Colombia.
Of course, my eyes lit up. But I still didn’t expect anything. We added each other, and I scanned his grid. I liked what I saw; he wasn’t someone extravagant and fake. He had few pictures and most were with family or traveling. Shortly after that, he texted me saying he had gotten out already and offering to give me a ride to my hotel. I had told him I was meeting a friend, and she came to meet me. I took him up on the offer.
The look on my friend’s face when I told her some random guy from the plane offered to give us a ride was priceless. But I trusted my instincts. And from that moment, we stayed in contact for 4 straight months. About a week later, he visited Valledupar, we met each other’s friends, and spent a weekend getting to know each other in person, taking it slow. Then 2 weeks later, we arranged to meet again when we were both in Bogota and spend a whole 9 days together.
I guess it’s strange to say we were taking it slow with all the talking we did and all the time we spent together, but that’s really all it was. There was a mutual respect for boundaries that I found refreshing. The second time around, we opened up even more about traumas, expectations, the past, the future… Let’s face it. I’m 34 years old. There’s no way I’m interested in an extended “talking stage.”
But now, I’m left wondering what qualifies as wasting time if you define your desires quickly and things still end shortly after. Well, you don’t waste as much time. The transparency is something I will definitely take with me. But still, my mind can’t separate and detach, even if I’m just getting to know someone. The more I fantasize about the future, the harder it gets. Finding a middle ground is challenging for me.
Long story short, our inside joke when discussing the future was “TBD” – nothing was certain, but we were okay with that. Things happen as they should, and time always tells.
I went back to the States with my plans to return to Colombia already clear for the aforementioned baptism/wedding. As our communication remained consistent, we decided to plan a trip together. We both agreed that you can’t fully know someone from afar, so what better way than traveling together? It’s true and proven by my previous experience travelling with friends and ex-partners that you really do see everything clearly about the other person when you travel with them: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Spoiler alert, but I really was banking on this experience not ending up in the ugly or bad category. We made a google doc together. He likes clarity, and over the years, I’ve also grown better at planning ahead, budgeting, choosing accommodation, transport, etc. I quickly put together the first leg; that one was crucial because I’d be coming back just in time to celebrate his birthday with him.
The plan went like this: 5 days in Bucaramanga staying in an apartment, a night at Refugio La Roca at 1 and a half hours from the city surrounded by canyon vistas for his birthday, a week in San Gil, and from there, there were a few options, but we weren’t able to define it all because I didn’t have all the information about the baptism. Still don’t, except that I probably won’t be here for it.
My luggage for a 3 and a half month trip – how’d I do?
A few flights later, lunch, and a taxi, and we’re on a 12 hour bus from Cartagena to Bucaramanga. The next day basically I got sick. I’ve only just really recovered from that icky flu (congestion still hanging on tho). Then, I felt the tell-tale signs of a UTI. Lovely. Just in time for his birthday in the middle of nature. I was weak, in pain, and yet still teaching my lessons and trying to do my part to make the trip go smoothly.
I got a uroanalysis done in San Gil and only got prescribed with antibiotics last week, so it was a long process of pain and discomfort.
The setup is to say, I wasn’t at all at my best. I was messy and feeling pretty unmotivated to establish my routines. I didn’t realize how this might be coming off, but there were moments. Like when I used his towel to avoid getting the floor wet. I do that with my own towel, but if I was in a dirty place, I’d usually dry myself off first. Still, I didn’t do that this time, he noticed, and it bothered him.
Since the end of January, he had already expressed that the way I chew (especially when I’m tearing into something out of hunger or enthusiasm) activated his misophonia. I have misophonia, so I could understand that. But it still kept causing trouble. When he first told me it bothered him A LOT, I’ll admit, my thought was DOOMED because I know it’s an unconscious habit that would take me time to improve, and if it was that distressing for him (I think of how partners that snored or smoked affected me), then even a small thing could be a dealbreaker.
Still, we both were able to discuss it, and after quickly processing the feedback, I turned off my black-and-white thinking that he would never accept me and instead chose to think proactively. We came up with a code for him to remind me when the smacking was obnoxious.
2 months apart, less than 2 weeks together again, and we’re sitting at a table in Gringo Mike’s talking about his conflicting feelings about our future. The past few days had been tense, but it was a slow burn.
The Last Supper in question
There was a paro (road blockage caused by strike) in Santander, so we ended up spending 3 nights instead of one in Refugio. The staff was lovely to us. They gave a generous discount for the nights we were stuck there that even eliminated the cost of food we had consumed. The place was beautiful and utterly worth it. Cool air, stunning sunrises and calming sunsets. I had the room decorated for his birthday, and they had gone above and beyond, covering the bed and floor with flowers and providing a moist, delicious brownie and a bottle of wine. There was even a cat that came and snuggled with us every day. Plus, the internet was strong enough in the restaurant for me to get all of my work done in relative comfort.
Yes, there were stressful moments. I felt shutdown because my body was in misery. UTI’s and nature do NOT go well together. I woke up at 5 am from the pain and had to just sit on the toilet or stand under the soothing hot waters of an outdoor shower complemented by a colorful landscape view. Yet, I was not okay. I felt lucky that he stepped in and helped make sure we got the discount and communicated proactively with the staff, because I didn’t have the energy to. The situation was frustrating, and I felt like a Colombian would be better received. In the end, everything went well. Crisis averted.
What did we learn? Well, we had a nauseating ride to San Gil. Those curves are BRUTAL. We both felt like shit. He was having trouble hearing. I spoke to him in Spanish, he asked me to repeat myself in English, and I took it the wrong way. I admit, my insecurities with partners using me to practice their English was my main hangup. That escalated quickly, and we were outside of Meraki boutique hostel arguing. I thought he’d called me an asshole (my hearing after that ride was also shit, apparently), everything happened fast.
There it was. The cracks that showed. And then the next night, dinner, he uses our code word in an irritated tone just as I am opening my mouth to answer a question he had asked me – and I snapped. That was the beginning of the end. Hard conversations, irreconcilable differences – to him, that to me had just been motivated by stress and discomfort. No future. That was his conclusion. No use investing more time, energy, and money.
So, now I’m solo traveling, unexpectedly, and dealing with a breakup I equally was not prepared for. I thought that maybe things would go downhill slowly so we could handle it with grace, but it turned out to be a fucking avalanche. I’m still conflicted about his reasons, the way he spoke to me and decided to leave. I honestly believed him when he said he didn’t give up easily. I guess I underestimated just how serious his past trauma and triggers were. Because apparently, I activated all of them. And to him, no amount of time and calm to reconsider was going to change anything.
Takeaways? If you want to get to know a person, you can travel with them. It works. But be prepared for anything. Even ending up alone. Always have a backup plan in mind, an exit plan or an escape door for the other person. I didn’t think he would get tired of me first, and I think the blow that dealt to my ego has been the worst of it, but I’m trying to cope and treat myself with compassion.
All of this being said, I have been working hard and trying to stay on track with my side projects. I’m almost done editing my next youtube video. My next move was to go back to Bucaramanga and get an apartment with a workspace – and it was my best choice. As much as staying with my friends can be convenient, I’ve realized I really love being alone. I don’t feel like I’m bothering anyone and able to keep things to my liking. I’ll be posting about my accommodations and budget – another reason I came back to Bucaramanga is because food and taxis are CHEAP here, it’s not a sprawling city like Bogota, but it has all of the luxuries, and the weather is practically perfect.
I’ll also be sharing insights and tips as I prepare to go from Colombia to East Asia. Korea, Japan, and Thailand, I’m coming for you! I just need this time to process… And I thank you, compassionate reader, for letting me vent and share my Drama with you on this blog.
P.S. The Drama reference is intentional: I saw the movie on Sunday, and WOW. If you like morally ambiguous, emotionally charged movies that challenge you, where you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, I would highly recommend it.
There’s no better way to start than with the origin of 90% of all of my emotional woes: perfectionism and demanding too much of myself. In other words, my black and white, all-or-nothing thinking, 100 or 0 thinking. The profound conviction that I was never enough. That I always had to do a little more. I was even convinced that I shouldn’t celebrate or be happy about the accomplishments that I had invested so much time and effort intobecause I was just doing my duty. It’s what I had to do. So, automatically, without time to process what had happened, I had to continue being productive, reaching objectives, chasing goals.For example, if I managed to get good grades on tests, it wasn’t a reason to celebrate. I was just fulfilling my obligation. No matter how much blood, sweat, and tears it cost me to pull it off, I didn’t even feel gratification but rather a sense of spectacular indifference that made me shift my attention to reaching the next goal.
When I try to find the root of all this, I realize that one of my biggest concerns since I was very young has been to not disappoint others. Act the right way. That’s made me had a huge sense of responsibility and an extremely rigid and demanding mindset.
You know those horses that have blinders on both sides of their eyes to give them tunnel vision to keep them from getting distracted so that it’s clear what path they must take? Well, I’ve been exactly like that all my life.
As children, we observe what happens in the adult world, all of the problems and discomfort that comes with it, which is why we don’t want to add more fuel to the fire. Therefore, we force ourselves to be perfect little beings to not cause any trouble for those people that we love and admire so much. Or at least, that’s what happened to me.
Wanting to control everything in a world where nothing is predictable produces a tremendous amount of anxiety. It’s living and constantly trying to keep a multitude of factors and circumstances that escape us under control.
I’ve always believed that there was a sort of drill sergeant in my head that spent all day ordering me around, disregarding how I felt completely. “Don’t stop! You have to be skinny to be beautiful! You have to tell everyone yes so that no one gets disappointed. You have to be popular, be the best friend that everyone would wish to have. Be the best daughter, the best student, the best girlfriend. You must study to have a degree that makes other people proud. Give your 100% in everything, be super clear about everything, show self-composure.”
All my life spent repeating these mantras to myself, beating myself up, and talking to myself as if I were my worst enemy. My worst teacher or my worst boss. Little by little, this took its toll on me and, of course, on my mental health. Sometimes when I look back, I would like to hug that girl and tell her not to be so hard on herself. To not be so afraid. To not put so much pressure on herself. That it’s not worth it and isn’t going to be good for her. But I guess that everything that happened has also turned me into the person I am today. It’s something that I had to go through to grow and learn.
Allowing myself even the smallest margin of error was the same as failing. I had to always be the best in everything I did. I remember perfectly that when I started going to therapy years later, one of the first things that my therapist said was: “Cris, you have to choose what you truly value and prioritize it to try to invest the most attention and time you can. You have to be an 8 or a 9. But there are other things where you might be a 5 or a 6. And that’s okay. If you try to be a 10 in everything, you’ll end up nosediving to 0. Because there is no way that your mind and your body can take that level of pressure. Assume that you can’t be a 10 in all aspects of your life.” Her words managed to open my eyes. It seemed very simple, but it wasn’t. Because for as long as I could remember my thought process had always been rigid and closed off.
Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom to realize that the level of pressure that we are putting on ourselves is completely unsustainable.And that’s exactly what happened to me. The result of demanding so much of myself ended up snowballing into a stubborn anxiety. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll go into more detail about this later on.
What I have learned for sure is that we are not perfect machines. Even if we sometimes feel that the world’s pace demands that of us, we are not. In the end, as my mother says, we are nothing more than little bags of chemicals, people full of feelings and emotions, not robots. We can’t always get to everything, we can’t be liked by everyone, we can’t always be in the best mood. We can’t expect ourselves to never make a mistake ever. It’s impossible. When you internalize that and accept it, you feel an enormous freedom, even if it’s hard at first. You’re human, and therefore, vulnerable.
And that’s not a bad thing. It’s an innate part of our condition. We have no reason to run from that vulnerability. That only hurts us. And the best thing of all is that the world will not end if we are a little imperfect.
Now I know that people will not stop loving me. I’m not going to stop pursuing my goals, and I’m not going to die either. Quite the contrary. Now that I recognize that vulnerability, I stop putting so much pressure on myself. I let myself flow more, resulting in being more myself and happier.
The next time you think about demanding so much of yourself and berating yourself in some way, ask yourself if you would talk that way to a good friend that is doing the best she knows how, that’s giving her all, that’s making an effort every day to live life however she can. You wouldn’t, right? Well, don’t do it to yourself either. Because ultimately you are your own best friend.
Dear friend, invest your time and attention in the things that you value. Accept that you can’t be liked by everyone. Talk to yourself as you would talk to your best friend. After all, you’re going to be on this journey with yourself until the last day of your life.
We cannot expect perfection from ourselves, much less demand it. This chapter could have been written by me. I’ve often felt when I travel alone that there is the perfect representation of life. The novelty. The stress. The growth. And while on a trip alone you always find friends or kind strangers along the way, the takeaway stays the same. You go to sleep each night with yourself. You wake up and begin again and plan with yourself in mind.
We have to take care of ourselves. To be that friend, that parent, that partner, that support person that does not waver. Through thick and thin. Only then are we able to pick people that treat us the way we truly deserve to be treated. Only then can our self-demands stop turning into self-sabotage. We can be present and whole, prioritizing what we value. Showing up for ourselves. Appreciating our successes and learning from our failures.
How I learned to accept and love myself and stop suffering (Cómo aprendí a aceptarme, quererme y dejar de sufrir)
I found this audiobook on Spotify. It’s extremely relatable for any person, especially femme, that has felt too much, sacrificed their own authenticity, and surrendered their power to others. Who has listened to a drill Sargent (as the author Cris Blanco aptly calls it) in their head yelling at them Elsa style: “Conceal, don’t feel! Don’t let them know!”
This has been my journey since 2023. Forming a cocoon around myself, trying to emerge, struggling to accept what I perceive. I’m learning the message that any therapist helps you see: You need to be your own best friend. The person that believes in you the most has to be you. It is vital if you want to move forward and overcome doubts, about the self, the future.
So, instead of summarizing her words, I’ve decided to translate them for this blog today. I’m sure an English translation already exists online, but I am intentionally combining this with a daily practice. I started translating while listening in the past month since deciding I will test for my ATA translator’s certificate.
Let me showcase the resounding wisdom this author shares in her book. Let me know in the comments if you can relate to this subject as much as me! And if you want more. 🙂
Part 1: Feeling like you aren’t enough
You think that your perfectionism is your worstenemy. That you’re a failure for having anxiety and intrusive thoughts. For only knowing how to relate to others in a toxic way. Or obsessing over your body and your self-image. For feeling like you don’t fit in with the people around you. For not knowing what to do with your life. Sound familiar? If the answer is yes, then this book is for you.
I’ve always had the feeling that the things that I thought or felt only happened to me, and this caused me a lot of suffering. Life can be a real rollercoaster, full of twists and surprises, ups and downs, and strong emotions that we often don’t know how to handle. No one teaches us how to, either. And ultimately, all of that ends up blowing up in our faces.
For years, I’ve done everything possible to be the perfect girl. For example, I would try to conform to all the unattainable standards. I had a huge fear of disappointing others. Without realizing it, I kept putting more and more pressure on myself – pressure that was gradually taking me over from the inside and ended up destroying me emotionally.
Additionally, in my short life I’ve had the opportunity to experience different types of relationships from romantic to platonic, that while painful, have allowed me to understand that my way of interacting with others perhaps was not the best. In these relationships, my insecurities were reflected through many behaviors that could be considered toxic, although at the time, I was incapable of seeing them that way. Jealousy, dependency, and control are the worst enemies of a relationship. And I had to learn that the hard way. I guess that being a highly sensitive person also did not help when it came to regulating my emotions.
I always considered being sensitive a flaw, or rather, a synonym for weakness. And for years I have felt it is one of my greatest insecurities. I’m still in the process of understanding and accepting my sensitivity. Trying to start seeing it as another personality trait. That while it makes me feel everything, both good and bad, with more intensity, at the same time it allows me to appreciate the little things in life. To be more creative and to connect better with others.
This load of self-imposed requirements, perfectionism, limiting beliefs, and toxic relationships took the form of long-standing anxiety. I believe that I always had it. It was just silenced until these situations became too much for me and I couldn’t control it anymore. I could say that what seemed like the worst thing that had ever happened to me was in fact a new door opening for me. Both my body and my mind were telling me: “I can’t do this anymore. This has to change.” And as the saying goes: Once you hit rock-bottom, the only way to go is up. And that’s what I did.
It took me a lot of time, therapy, tears to start dismantling those limiting beliefs that I held about myself, the world around me, and to recognize that I’m still in this process. In fact, I think I will always be in the process. There is still plenty of things for me to understand and experience. But in the meantime, learning to accept what I think, feel, and am has given me the freedom I never thought I would achieve.
How can something that sounds so simple radically change your present and your future? In effect, it seems easy, but it isn’t because throughout our entire lives we force ourselves to repress our emotions. We try to control our thoughts. In short, we train ourselves to be living robots – bodies without souls that go around doing what they must, trying to satisfy the desires of everyone except themselves. How are we not going to explode at any given moment?
For me, accepting this vulnerability that makes us human was an authentic wake up call. A call to stop rejecting who I really was. And above all else to understand that although I couldn’t control my thoughts or my emotions, it was in my hands to decide how I would respond to them. Who would have thought that recognizing my vulnerability would be precisely what would make me successful? Understanding my success as the joy of being able to dedicate myself to what I’m passionate about. Fulfilling many of my dreams. Knowing that with it, I am making a positive impact on hundreds of people and real connections with them as well.
Aware of the road ahead of me, everything left to live, and all of the lessons that I still have to learn, I find it therapeutic to express myself and speak my truth. That’s why today I’m writing what I hope are the words that will stay with you like a heart-to-heart between friends.
This journal excerpt is taken from week 4 in Brazil, January 25th, 2025. Since I named my blog “adventurer’s diary” I figured, why not post one of my journal entries? Along with some photos taken at this stunning destination.
This entry came 10 days after my time in Salvador. I arrived in Brazil on December 28th after sorting out the over-stay fine with Colombian immigration in Leticia. I took a motocarro to Tabatinga, the Brazilian border town, with my flight ticket bought, ready to go to Manaus. Or so I thought.
My entire time in Brazil, I had issues with GOL Linhas. I would buy a ticket online; they would say it was confirmed. Then I would find out my payment was refunded. With no email notification. Both in Tabatinga and Manaus I ended up having to buy the ticket in the airport. I never did figure out why. Was it due to the security on my credit card (which is supposed to be ideal for travel – come on Aviator Mastercard!)? Or the hold they put on my bigger transactions after a random case of fraud.
Whatever the case, I showed up at the airport thinking I had a flight and found out it was canceled. Lucky for me, there was another flight leaving about an hour after the flight I showed up for. So, it all worked out.
That was to get to Manaus. After attempting and failing to buy my Manaus-Salvador flight ahead of time, I knew what to expect. I made sure to get an airbnb close to the Manaus airport. Then, I went to buy my ticket in person.
This was just a sample of the setbacks I experienced. By making a plan, I finally could have this transcendent day at the beach – Praia do Espehlo, some 2 hours from where I was staying in Porto Seguro.
When you enter, bring happiness, when you go, leave yearning.
Here’s a slice of my experience:
I’m at Praia do Espelho with a tour group. The tour cost 120R$ (~21 USD). The ride here on the tour van was bumpy, but I’ve been so tired, I still fell asleep.
It’s hard to describe vibes and generalize my experience with Brazilian people. On one hand, groups I have been haphazardly integrated into have been hit or miss – sometimes coming off as cold or discordant. I guess in those rare cases where I was invited to join close friends, I felt like there was little room for a third wheel. Or maybe I’m not confident enough in Portuguese to break the ice. I could just as well be misjudging the situation based on the little I can see on the surface.
All the same, Brazilians have been some of the most helpful and patient people I’ve encountered. Even on the street. One of the silly little things that has stood out to me after so much time in Colombia is how people actually respect pedestrian crossing. Even in the States that is insanely rare – you’re at a crosswalk, and the drivers stop to signal you to cross. Even bike riders take heed. The sense of awareness of other people and road rules seems stronger here.
What scares me is the intensity of the men. If they find you cute, they shoot their shot at all costs. I’ve gotten three or more new contacts because of this. You have to set boundaries, but I learned that well in Colombia. Been there, done that, could write a book on it. You can’t take all the flattery too seriously because that is typical modus operandi. A thinly veiled tactic to convince you they’re sincere.
But, on the other hand, it’s been nice not being pegged as gringa right off here. Brazilians come in all shapes and sizes. And they’re aware of that. It helps that I also speak Spanish. Still, I try not to default to speaking it. That has made being spontaneous more challenging. But that’s the idea. I’m mainly asked if I’m “Argentina” because most tourism comes from there. After all, it is summer here in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s high season in beach towns (so not great for my wallet). I imagined that but still didn’t prepare. Sometimes you just have to do things, accepting all consequences of your rash decisions.
Brazilian music is fire. You don’t hear Colombian music much or any music in Spanish. And, why would you, I guess? You rarely hear Brazilian music in Colombia. Brazilian’s have such a rich variety of musical styles and rhythms of all types that unless you happen to be in a community where Hispanic people live (mainly of the Venezuelan diaspora), you aren’t likely to hear Vallenato or merengue, or even reggaeton for that matter.
That means full immersion.
I just explored the beach. We got here around 10 am and leave at 3 pm.
The beaches here are like natural swimming pools: few big waves, soft, fine sand, lukewarm water – cool but not cold enough to shiver. I walked along 4 different small beaches connected to this stretch, sectioned by rocks, cliffs, and reefs. I saw people snorkeling, and I imagined all the colorful fish, coral reefs, and anemones they could see.
I floated on my back, peacefully rocked by steady waves. No rocks under foot in most of the sections. Some are covered by black sand that ripples when you walk on it, others orange, almost red when mixed with the deep blue water; the sand turns black and seems to pulse like something alive when you step on it. In other parts of the beach stretch the sand looked almost tanned ivory, shining in the sun, lending credence to the name: Mirror beach.All of the sand is smooth, inviting when wet, hot from the Brazilian summer sun, but I followed the shoreline to soak my feet as I went.
Now I’m listening to a three-man band play what sounds like Brazilian zydeco. They play the same type of accordion popular in Louisiana. There’s a guy playing a triangle, and the accordionist is also the singer. I think I’m in heaven: sipping my obligatory (over-priced) cocktail, a mint-flavored piña colada, taking it all in from my wooden beach chair in front of the ocean under a parasol…
I wrote this on October 15th, almost a year ago when I was over two months into working at a jungle hostel. The transition from living in a city working at a private school and working and living in the middle of the jungle, in the middle of nature, in the hospitality industry, was not an easy one, as much as I wanted to be there and felt blessed by circumstance. There, I reflected and wrote about my internal struggle with living in survival mode and how hard it is to truly thrive in that state.
I went to walk down the closest stream today with the intention of simply observing and being present – meditating. All day I have been in fawn mode. Our body’s response to being in danger can come in many forms, but we are most familiar with fight or flight. We forget about fawn and freeze. Fawning is when we think we can placate the cause of our extra-alert state and by doing so, be safe from danger (the reason our nervous system is dysregulated). Freezing obviously is when we shut down completely (playing dead) when we can no longer fawn or fight or run away.
In this role I feel constantly stuck between the 4. I have been living in survival mode for so long, my nervous system doesn’t even know how to regulate itself – or rather, the processes it would go through need to be heavily strengthened because as it stands, I am in a state of hypervigilance that doesn’t allow me to function properly. This affects mood and bodily functions, and everything in between.
But the biggest thing I’m finding that it affects is the ability to be present. Without being present, you cannot observe and take in anything around you. An animal being chased by a predator does not stop to notice the ripples in the river or the color of the plants around it or even the scents left by other animals. It compromises this ability to stay alive, and to survive, it only needs to run as quickly as possible without feeling its own exhaustion.
That’s flight, but the same is true when we fight and black out. We might not even remember what set us off or who threw the first punch – this is why we so often misremember events after going through something dramatic or traumatic. We act on instinct, and that instinct could be to hit back.
It might equally be to fawn. No one is threatening my livelihood, but I fear being hated by my bosses and coworkers, making a bad impression on customers, and so on, and these things rely on my disposition and the way other people perceive me. So, in this state the urge is to perform behaviors that will keep the perceived threatening party happy. The worst thing for me about being stuck here is that I can shift to fight mode because I am aware that this job is not a big deal. I am so grateful for the experience, which can lead to me being fearful of doing something wrong and losing it, but in reality, I am free, and my livelihood is not relying whatsoever on me working here. And I know that.
Sometimes though, we just freeze. In those moments it feels like my head is full of cement. It’s trying to move and form thoughts, phrases, actions, while struggling, like pushing a boulder through pudding. Sometimes nothing makes sense to me. I can’t even breathe, think, take a moment to connect with my body and my surroundings.
That’s when it hits me. The water in that stream is full of ripples, forming little waves. Those ripples are caused by the movement of tons of tiny, small fish and insects and living things living in the stream, pushing against the waters. And that is every person and circumstance, moving through a stream we cannot control, hitting obstacles, running into other people and their feelings and their consciousness and not being able to see what causes those ripples. We can only see it if we slow down. We can only see the cause of the movements around us if we are present, observing, noticing. Outside of ourselves from within.
This has been coming up in my meditations a lot, the reason being still can be so essential to meditation. The need to connect.
The need to acknowledge other forms of consciousness and life. Living matter all must have some level of conscious awareness, even if it is not able to manifest itself. Matter is full of energy that changes forms without being destroyed.
I would not notice this if I didn’t choose to slow down, stop, observe. I cannot notice anything in survival mode.
This thought led to another of my theories. Our bodies and our biology have a reason and a purpose molded by all of the thousands of years of evolution and changes we’ve faced as living things on Earth. At one time, our survival depended as much on observing as it did on fighting or any of the other instinctual behaviors.
Well, observing can be instinctual as well. It has also served us to thrive as living beings. And with our lives today, mortal threats have been replaced by mundane situations related to our source of livelihood: money, jobs. For that reason, we cannot tell the difference between a true threat and something that simply feels uncomfortable.
Furthermore, we spend so much of our day passively engaging with technology. I realized that the energy in my body must be channeled in an active way. Otherwise, it could only be fueling my anxiety – the cortisol levels are not divorced from eons of evolution. We feel stress because we were wired to some extent to move. To use our consciousness to think, analyze, and observe. To use our bodies to walk, run, be useful, be active.
And yet so much of our time is dedicated to sitting and staring at a screen and reacting to other people’s actions and thoughts and possibly expressing our own but in limited and formulaic ways. This can’t be serving the purpose we human beings have, our needs as complex beings to move both mentally and physically and act.
These reflections came to me sitting on a mossy rock in the middle of the jungle, watching the stream, observing mushrooms growing on a log. Something this mundane is still crucial for us to reach our full potential as living things. A leaf has as much purpose as we do – it grows to feed its tree; it dies to feed other living things and to nourish the soil. And the cycle continues.
Thinking about life in this way is hugely comforting to me. It reminds me I can find the motivation I need to fulfill my own purpose as a living being, no matter how small and insignificant it may seem. But I must use all the tools available to me as a human: my mind connected to my body and the environment that surrounds me. I must avoid disconnecting and hiding in survival mode.
Every wrinkle, like a scar, is part of my story, It’s part of my journey, It’s deeper than the tattoos on my skin, Written into my DNA Like the generational trauma, Passed down like family heirlooms Through the years.
It is what I make it, Like my story of– pain, beauty, humanity, witnessing. I can erase my wrinkles, But they would remain All the same– the wisdom, the hard fought hard won wars with myself– the stress and anxiety– the fear of abandon.
Is beauty youth or grace? Does “aging gracefully” mean Showing grace, self-possession And self-acceptance, or is it dyeing my hair and getting botox? Is that all a lie, manufactured confidence? Is aging gracefully winning the genetic lottery? Does it mean having no scars?
I’m 32, and society already has me labeled as irrelevant, no matter the creases on my forehead, the greys in my hair. Or at least that’s how it feels, How it once was and for many Still is.
Yet I choose to love who I am now, Who I’m becoming and un- Becoming– Age-willing, time-abiding Chronos-Prothimos, I’m not done changing yet, And to change is to live And be alive.
Los cuerpos son definiciones perdidas en los diccionarios Sin brazos sin piernas sin ojos sin memoria tratan de recobrar su rumbo
Los cuerpos que transitan este paraíso han perdido su significado como una tilde dibujada en el vacío
Somos esas piedras que lavadas por la creciente han perdido su piel
My Translation:
Our bodies are lost definitions in dictionaries No arms no legs no eyes no memory trying to recover their path
Our bodies that move through this paradise have lost their meaning like an accent drawn in the abyss
We are those stones washed by the tide that have lost their skin
This poem speaks to me in a way that transcends words. My own attachment to words and metaphor coalesce with this fascinating image drawn out by Félix. Everything that we are and the language we use over time loses its meaning. There is a sense of inevitable decay, a divorce from the tongues that gave words their meaning. I like how this concept of words losing their meaning, and our own bodies becoming words without meaning, formless anomalies — it is such a powerful visual. I hope I did it some justice.
Translating poetry is unique in that you have to take the music of the words into account, as well as the meaning and metaphor. Translating music takes this to another level. But I like the challenge. Translating a full book would be even harder because you have to live inside those pages and words well enough to capture what the author wanted to convey through a different linguistic lens.
I’ll be continuing with this project and translating the full book of poetry, The Discourse of the Rain, during this week. As always, I’m happy to hear any feedback, especially from my bilingual writers/poets.
![Nómada [con] Rumbo](https://nomadaconrumbo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-dsc07640.jpg)
