“Write one sentence” was on my to-do list for today. I just crossed it off my list (it’s done). I used a burnt nub of palo santo to cross it off. I tried to take a video, to commemorate my success of doing. I started recording on my phone, and held it sideways between my chin and my chest. My crossing off wasn’t in frame. But, I did it. Both the writing, and the crossing.

When I lived in Donostia (San Sebastián), I saw a Brazilian guy for a month or two. I didn’t live there for very long. Long enough to start saying agur instead of hasta luego when I left small shops, the gym, the bus. I talked on the phone with my Spanish ex-half-boyfriend a few times after I moved there, said agur to him before hanging up, to his audible surprise.

Donostia is in País Vasco, where many people prefer to speak Euskera, not Spanish, you see. (Once, I was trying to spell my last name while on the phone in Spain. I spelled it “beh igriega ele eh erre” and then clarified with “beh como Vasco,” to which the woman on the other end chuckled and replied “Vasco es con uve.”)

We went on a walk one evening, the Brazilian and I, not my ex-half-boyfriend. It was windy, as it often was. Waves were crashing up on the road that ran around the old city (San Sebastián is on the coast, you see), even though the sea was several meters below the retaining wall (or land, or whatever way the very old city was built).

We went to cross the street, but didn’t time our crossing well (crossing with our walking legs, not palo santo). A wave swelled, crashed over us as we walked, on the road several meters up above the sea. I thought it was funny, went home and changed into dry clothes. He did not think it was funny (he was a surfer, and he had misread his medium).

Maybe it was magic, the timing of the waves. Maybe it was esoteric. I’ll never know. And maybe I prefer it that way.

Everything is written the same. Passive voice when I’m not sure what I’m saying, or who I am when I say it. Cadenced with commas, but only sometimes, and, other times, not. That time had a few; you get it, you see?

I asked my dad if he had a good sermon written for this upcoming Sunday (he’s a pastor, you get it, you see), and he said yes, but, it’s not one of his best. The feeling is mutual, isn’t it? Writing something for people to hear, and it not being one of your best.

Several things run in our family, writing one of them. I remember driving from Virginia to Ohio, many times over, my dad driving with his knees and flipping through self-made flashcards of Chinese characters (my brother once explained his own process for learning characters, because there are too many to simply memorize, and it involved cardinal directions, well-known locations, and movie stars (Gandalf facing east on the top of EMU hill, for example (Gandalf, the movie star))). Fuzzy AM sports radio played quietly in the background, now, one of my favorite sounds.

Many years ago (I don’t know how many) my dad sat listening clandestinely to a Cleveland Indians (now, Guardians) game on his first radio: his most serious infraction against the Mennonite church. His dad, my grandpa, who died when I was three, heard verboten fuzzy AM sports radio playing from inside his son’s room. Walked in, sat down, asked: What’s the score?

We’d get to my grandma’s house: tiny, sunken into a small hill, front yard prone to flooding (in the winter, the flooded front yard would freeze, and my million cousins and I spent hours running and sliding across the shallow ice). I slept on the floor of my parents’ room (the same room my mom once shared with her three sisters (my brother slept in the room over (once shared by our two uncles))), and I’d wake up to the sound of my mom and my grandma talking from the kitchen, just outside the bedroom door. Words fuzzy, mumbled, tumbling out without pause; the only time one breathed was while the other spoke. Another one of my favorite sounds.

My mom’s dad died when she was 14, but, I think, he also wrote. Or, was transcribed, because, as a paraplegic, he couldn’t use a typewriter. My grandma, the tiny one talking with my mom in the kitchen, wrote for him. Their daughter, my mom, has more journals than even me (but has had more time to fill them). She’s said that, one day, she’ll burn them. I pray she does not.

I have each of these stupidly precious, preciously stupid pieces I write saved on my computer in a folder called “Self Histories.” But, maybe, more history is involved, than is self.

I tried my best to follow my original plan of living in Spain for two years, and then returning to the US to resume my life where I left off (re: pick up the pieces of my old life (only it was like that video of a raccoon trying to eat cotton candy, but he washes it in a little puddle first, and then desperately searches with sharp little raccoon hands for his completely dissolved, never-to-be-found tasty treat).

(Apparently, according to (the free excerpt from) a 2016 article in The Atlantic, raccoons wet their food before they eat to “enhance their understanding of what they’re eating”—not because they are fastidiously tidy little guys that want to wash the goop off their garbage before munching with their adorable little faces.)

(“Little” count while talking about raccoons: 4)

I loved living in Valencia. I lived in an amazing apartment in an amazing neighborhood with three amazing roommates. When I moved in, I set the address as “home” on Google Maps. I’ve never changed it.

I taught at an elementary school 40 minutes outside of Valencia, in a tiny farming town called Alcàntera de Xúquer. The school had ~100 students, and they exclusively spoke Valenciano (so I could almost understand when Rafael Nadal spoke Mallorquin with his family in the Rafa docuseries on Netflix (he said like five total sentences in Mallorquin the whole show (so, I didn’t actually understand anything))).

(Valenciano, Mallorquin, and Catalán are all different, but I have untrained ears so they all kinda sound exactly the same, don’t @ me please.)

There was no public transport from Valencia city to Alcàntera. The school had a total of 12 teachers, and they all basically lived next door (or they lived in Alcàntera’s rival town, Cárcer, which was literally across the street). So, I had no way to get to work (unless I lived with the family of one of my students, which I was *not* keen on doing).

I didn’t have the money or necessary European paperwork to buy a car. But, being the very wise and road-savvy age of 25, I could rent one. Long-term rentals were more expensive than buying a car, so I rented cars at two-week intervals for the entire year. Every two weeks, I would head to the cheapest (and now probably bankrupt) rental agency, return one car, and pick up another—usually a Ford Ka or something equally as tiny.

I used those cars to get to work (and cry in traffic while listening to Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday podcast (I turned 26 that year and it was HARD!!)), and I was never bothered by the 40-minute commute. The highway I took was lined with endless fields of orange trees, then caqui trees, then orange trees again. The drive was gorgeously monotonous, monotonously gorgeous.

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Teacher-friends would sometimes bring me grocery bags full of oranges to take home, that either they or their parents had picked. They told me I could pick my own from the field across the street, that no one would mind, but I never did (I did once pick some caquis from the field behind the school (I love caquis SO MUCH)). I’d put the oranges in the backseat of my tiny rental car and drive home.

I slept in my tiny rental car most of my weekends that year. When the weather was good, my best friend/climbing partner and I would drive to Albarracín, the car packed full of two tiny crashpads and backpacks and Tupperwares full of pasta. We’d climb all day, do crosswords when we got tired, and crank the tiny car’s seats back to sleep in at night.

I went to Portugal during my spring break that year, and slept in the back of a Portuguese rental car. I drove my way down from Porto (where I found out I don’t like Port wine), through the Douro valley (where I stopped for lunch at what turned out to be a very fancy private estate (I had not showered in days (they had no food, but they did give me a free glass of wine))), got lost on a very beautiful but poorly-marked hike, and made it to Lisbon (where I finally rented a room in a hostel).

I read the book The Defining Decade while in Portugal. Every morning I’d go to the nearest cafe, and order a coffee in Spaniguese. I’d sit outside in the sun to read, while looking out over steep vineyard hills or ancient bridges over small winding rivers or cobblestoned back alleys. The book explained, in vivid anecdotal detail, how important your 20s are. How most people waste this decade away in youthful bliss, and enter their 30s behind and frustrated and without a plan. At the sensitive age of 26, I had just enough time left to make sure this didn’t happen to me.

So, in July 2019, I knew it was time to go back to my real life. I packed up everything I had in Valencia, and left my crashpads with my Spanish half-boyfriend (he was all-in, I was not). He sadly asked me if I was really leaving, and I resolutely said yes, yes I was.

And I did! I really left. I was the critical age of 26. I had some cotton candy to go wash.

To be fair, I continued to do very Oh, honey, what were you thinking? stuff well beyond my first year in Spain (and I did almost die (don’t ignore your UTIs, babe!! (especially on the brink of a global pandemic!! (even if you’re multi-pitching in the middle of nowhere!! (with someone who will later become your first husband!! (just ask to be taken to the nearest fucking hospital!! (the survival of you and your kidneys is not an inconvenience!!))))))).

I’m tempted to put my list of Oh, honey, what were you thinking? events behind a paywall, specifically so my family can’t read it, never find out, and don’t look at me with a what the actual fuck expression next time I see them. However, my parents are 2 of my 5 paid subscribers, making the paywall irrelevant (I dare you to become #6 💋).

Instead, I’ll just kindly ask anyone related to me to quit reading HERE. I fear this won’t be the only time I make this request (and if you’re still reading, then I will ask again: stop).

Mom, I’m serious.

Tell my mom I'm serious

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The Giant Gay German

My one and only Tinder date was a disaster (I don’t think this is what Bad Bunny meant when he said, “Después de mí, vas a borrar Tinder” (I did, in fact, delete Tinder after this encounter (and then I redownloaded it like a month after when I was freezing my tits off while camping and kindly asking matches if they had a van I could stay in (it did not work (and then I deleted the app for good))))).

I’m not wooed by platitudes and small-talk, and I have a tendency to jump into things head-first (EXCEPT for water, because it’s scary and I don’t want to (I once refused to jump off the top of a deep water solo climb and instead did the wettest, sketchiest downclimb of my life (it was not tall, and jumping into the water was very safe (this was mere months after I used/deleted Tinder, so quite the year for decision-making)))).

So, when someone on Tinder skipped the introductory bullshit and instead asked if he could come spend the week with me in Murcia, I said, “yeah sure why not” (jumping into things head-first does give you lots of things to laugh and write about years later (provided the strange man you’re inviting into your home doesn’t kill you first (lucky for me, he did not))).

We met at the entrance to my apartment, and he was very tall. I asked him how tall he was, and he said “almost two meters,” which I thought was a dumb answer (I thought about his answer a few years later when I hooked up with a guy who was 6’8’’/2.03 meters (you know this conversion and not your tiny grandma’s height? Seriously, Sim, get your priorities in order (I only know this because LeBron is 6’8’’ and I frequently need to explain to the European mind how important LeBron is to me and my people))).

He was German, and not very cute (foreshadow alert (I just don’t like blondes, ok??)). He studied philosophy and thought he was very smart (which maybe he was, but doesn’t thinking you’re smart make you at least 20% dumber?)). And I don’t know if he left the apartment the whole week he stayed with me (my roommate eventually asked me if he was alive or not).

We shared my single bed for the week, but never actually hooked up (despite his very bizarre advances (I’ll spare you the details (but might write in a different parenthetical aside in a different self-history piece five years from now))). He made several homophobic comments in a very forced and passé manner, so I reckoned that he was gay, closeted, and figuring it out (aren’t we all, honey).

Before he got there, I’d hidden all my private-lesson cash in the back of my closet (classic—who would think to look for valuables in a closet?? (almost as foolproof as hiding your wallet in your shoe at the beach)). He didn’t steal my money, and he didn’t seem strapped for cash (even though he was clearly using Tinder to find free places to stay as he traveled).

He didn’t steal my money, but he did use my laptop without me knowing, and told me that I had the most boring internet search history of anyone he’d ever met. I found this both deeply concerning and truly hilarious (like, was that his version of an insult? A power move? Flirting? Missed the mark on all three, you averagely over-average-height Freudian slip of a dirtwad (hope you’re doing great tho xoxo)).

While he was there, I continued about my life: I went to work, my private lessons, the climbing gym, saw my friends. I spent most of the day out of the house, and, when I got home, he’d be there, asleep-ish in my single bed with the lights off and shutters closed.

A few days in, my friends asked me why, for the love of god, I hadn’t kicked him out. I didn’t really have an answer; I knew he’d be leaving at the end of the week, so it didn’t seem like a conversation worth having (I have since realized my debilitating lack of confrontation skills and alarming ability to endure other people’s nonsense).

I don’t remember when he left (semi-lie: I went to Valencia with friends and I’m pretty sure he left while I was gone (I was in Valencia for a week-long Fallas bender and a very serious Oh, honey, what were you thinking? stint (which I will never write about, sorry (I ate a used hotdog off the ground, that is the only detail you’re ever getting)))).

I’m sure there are gems of insight buried in this story—broken crystals of self-worth and communication skills and for-christ’s-sake-quit-doing-things-just-for-the-plot-and-make-a-good-decision-for-once. For now, I’ll just put my arm around 25-year-old me and say with a laugh, oh honey, what were we thinking.

Now go delete Tinder xoxoxoxoxo

I remember that I once wrote “clip toenails” on my ever-present post-it note to-do list, but I don’t remember anything else on the list. Maybe I remember that because, for the love of god, why would anyone ever need to remind themselves to clip their toenails?

Remind me to clip my nails

I started climbing while living in Murcia, and my feet were new to the feeling of being squeezed into climbing shoes. Climbing shoes in Spanish are called pies de gato (cat’s feet). Did it take longer to write “clip toenails” on a post-it than it would have to just clip them?

I didn’t sleep a lot the year I lived in Murcia. I’d run from my high school teaching job to the private lessons I taught for extra cash to the climbing gym to my favorite bar where I’d split a liter of 4€ beer with friends to the kebab shop where I’d ask the young guy shaving spiraling meat about his life back in Syria. His name was Mohammad. There simply wasn’t time to clip my toenails.

The high school where I worked was an hour drive from Murcia city. I carpooled with other teachers early every morning, and one teacher once complained that I never joined in the conversations, that I wasn’t trying to improve my Spanish. Her name was Raquel. I didn’t tell her that I understood most everything, but was just too tired to answer.

I liked Tuesday mornings, when it was just me and the head of studies driving to school. His name was Ángel. He was a larger, older Spanish man who taught me the word invernadero (greenhouse) and filled a few pages of my mini Moleskine with things I should go see, food I should go eat, music I should go listen to. He told me to go to Córdoba, eat salmorejo. I did.

In the morning, we’d head to the school’s canteen, run by Pili y Pepe. All the teachers would pack in, gab, order coffee, and Ángel would help Pili pull espressos and steam milk behind the counter. I’d grab my daily cortado and slide 90 cents across to Pili. I loved Pili. She ignored me, called me cariño. The bell would ring, we’d down what was left in our cups and run to class. In the afternoon, when Ángel stopped for gas, he would buy peanuts (for me) and 0.0% beer (for him).

The other head of studies name was Amara. She set me up with her son. His name was Javi. Javi took me to a cafe outside the city, where I flipped a speculoos cookie from my nose into my mouth, like a well-trained dog. At the end of the school year, Amara invited me to her house for lunch with her and Javi. Another teacher came with us. Her name was Elena. Elena and Javi are now married.

Looking back, maybe I was never the main character of any story. Maybe I was just the tipsy girl whose incessant questions reminded Mohammad how much he missed home. The annoying American who made Raquel grateful for her other, more engaging colleagues. The wide-eyed foreigner who helped Ángel remember how much he loved teaching. The excuse Amara used to organize a fruitful matchmaking luncheon. The conversation grease between Javi and Elena, the one who took the pressure off their impromptu first date.

Main character or not, I was there, weaving my way through others’ lives and disappearing quietly at the end of the year. I wonder what would have happened if I stayed past that single year. Whose life I would have woven into, who would have made their way through mine. Sometimes, I imagine living in that timeline. I imagine sitting again, at the counter across from Pili. I slide her 90 cents for my cortado, drink it slowly. She ignores me. Says gracias, cariño.

(Wasn’t that a thing in The Parent Trap? Didn’t the Californian Lindsay Lohan say to whisk the eggs instead of using a fork so they don’t get bruised, and Chessy then said, “Next you’ll worry about hurting their feelings,” or something like that? (Nope, after a memory deep dive, this is from a real twin movie (the Olsens), not a mirror twin movie (the Lohan).))

Regardless of who first said it, today I am feeling like a pile of scrambled eggs. Distant and obsessive and everything all at once (my fingers have already turned to hot dogs). I read a poem about how to disappear. A curated post about trusting your intuition. Has anyone ever heard what intuition sounds like? I think I am breathing louder.

I sent an incoherent voice message to my best friend. I wonder about her ex-boyfriend. She said it wasn’t incoherent. I imagine her with a pen and spiral notebook, deciphering, listening between thoughts, piecing together trailed-off sentences and run-ons that never got to the point at hand, if there ever was a point at hand. Listening to me reach the end of a sentence is a love language.

The voice message was 10 minutes long, but I’ve sent longer. A fly buzzes past me. My shoulders are pink from the sun, but they’ve been pinker. I wish I understood more, felt more, or, maybe, less. I’ve been trying to remember my dreams. I haven’t been sleeping, so no dreams have been there to remember.

At what point do you know, or not know? Remember, el camino se hace al andar. What if I ran across him, or him, or him, in a forest? What if all the people who have been part of me knew the others existed? Do they know I still exist? My mind wanders, I drink water and swat at another passing fly.

This is not poetry, or stream of consciousness, or the telling of truths or lies. But, in order to define something by what it’s not, it still has to be what it is. I imagine taking a bite of an orange, juice runs down my chin, I wipe it with the back of my hand, it runs down my wrist, forearm, drips off my elbow.

Is this not the point, switching from hot to cold to hot again and pressing so hard your cuticles split? Press harder, squeeze more, let the juice of it all run down and drip from your elbows. Listen to what you can hear, then listen harder. Beneath it, lies something—tell me if you find it.

I picked two years because I wanted to be taken seriously (just one year abroad? Pshaaaw, you poser), but also wanted to come back and resume my life before too much time had passed (three years to a 24-year-old is essentially a lifetime (you mean one day I’ll be 27, and then 30, and then 33 for fuck’s sake? Does it ever stop?? (No 😘))).

(I mean, I guess it does stop, given that no one makes it out of life alive and all that. To quote the great Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, “La vida es una fiesta que un día termina.” (Do you all have any idea what it’s like to have your “10 years ago I thought we’d be together forever” ex-boyfriend be from P fucking R during Bad Bunny mania? (Kendall Jenner, we have sooo much to talk about (namely your credit card details, but also this xoxo))))

Enter your details here, Kendall Jenner

So, my first two years in Spain were supposed to be my only years in Spain (I say this, but before moving, I had repeatedly told my extended family that I’d be living abroad for at least five years (I can’t remember why I said this, but probably just to see their reactions (I live for stirring the pot (but not in the traditional cooking kinda way)))).

I ended up living in Spain for four years, and spent each year in a different city: Murcia, Valencia, San Sebastián (with a well-timed jaunt to Larchant, France, for a lil thing called covid lockdown (oh god and then Darmstadt, Germany (remember when I said I cried to go home while in Germany? That happened there))), and, finally, Teruel.

I loved living in Spain. I loved how no one ever ordered coffee to go, I loved how close everyone stood to each other when talking, I loved watching people pour olive oil on bread with abandon, I loved being surrounded by neighborhood noise and loud conversations, and never being the only one walking home late at night.

I loved living in Spain, but I never settled. Each year, I got a different contract to teach at a different school in a different city. I found a different apartment, met different people, had different friends. I got used to the whirlwind of picking up and moving, addicted to the excitement of starting over and the freedom of becoming someone new.

I loved every place I lived in Spain. But every year, in every new city, I waited to feel fully at home, fully convinced that I belonged there, fully ready to be that version of myself, forever. That feeling never came, and no single place ever outweighed the allure of the unknown.

Permanence is still something I struggle with (my dear Better Help therapist from two years ago is probably screaming at her computer, telling me to go get officially diagnosed for ADHD (I promise I will if I ever remember, Leanne)). Maybe my long-term plans will continue to change, maybe my decisions will continue to be erratic. But I can tell other exciting things are still out there; here’s to hoping for a bit more luck.

Her name was Ruby. She had two sons and four daughters named Rose, Ruthie, Rhonda, and Debbie (LOL sorry Debbie, couldn’t be too matchy-matchy, I guess). From what I remember, Tiny Grandma measured up to my mom’s chin (but osteoporosis had probably done its thing by the time my memory kicked in (LIFT WEIGHTS AS YOU AGE, PEOPLE)). This was not a very tall chin to measure up to; my mom, Ruthie, is only 5 feet tall (~152 cm (walking converter I feckin’ told ya)).

So, at a staggering 5’4’’/163 cm, I’m the first of my matriarchal lineage to not be tiny (while they were tiny, they did FIRMLY plant child-bearing hips into my DNA, making PANTS the bane of my existence for years (especially during my time in France, where women and bread share roughly the same sleek silhouette (I’m talking about baguettes (which, aptly enough, also means chopsticks)))).

I’m the first of my matriarchal lineage to be/not be a few things. The first to not be born Amish (conservative Mennonite if we’re splitting hairs (which the church has kindaaaa been known to do)), the first to go to college (though my mom has studied some very cool other stuff instead), and, most notably to the Mennonite community, the first to be twice-married.

It was never my intention to get married twice. It was also never my intention to have to get married when I didn’t really want to. Both of my marriages, one of which I’m still in, were done out of desperation.

I’ve met a fair number of other Americans living in Europe since I moved. To live here legally, they were all either a) citizens by parentage, or b) married to a European citizen. And, since my anabaptist ancestors fled Swiss-German persecution centuries ago, the only feasible path to residency I ever felt I had was marriage (okay yes I could’ve tried to get a job but, like, pretty damn fat chance even if the paperwork odds weren’t stacked against me (every job I ever interviewed for specifically said they COULD NOT WOULD NOT sponsor me for a visa)).

So I got married. Once to move to France after my four years in Spain, where I had been on a temporary student visa. And once as a last-ditch effort to stay in France a few years later, when my paperwork options were bleaker than ever before.

My marriages (if you can call them that (yes, I know that, legally, that’s what they’re called (but, like, the vibe is a tinyyyy bit different when you get married to your boyfriend of six months to avoid deportation rather than to announce your undying commitment to each other publicly))) aren’t something I’ve been outwardly open about…especially with my marriage-reverent family.

I wish I had been able to figure out a different way to stay in Europe (and I wish either marriage had worked to keep me in France, but here we are (where is “here” honestly)). A way that didn’t require so much explanation (I’m married, yes, according to Macron, but according to me (and my partner), the jury’s still out), didn’t cause so many Thanksgiving arguments, and didn’t desecrate the sanctity of marriage that my family holds so dear (honestly if they had seen either dinky town hall ceremony, I reckon they wouldn’t consider me married either).

So, I’ve added another item to my “first of my lineage” list; married twice, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do me part. But, if I could strike one thing from that list, I suppose I’d just choose to be tinier.

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It’s kind of crazy how clear past events become when so much time has passed (I say this as if nine years is a lot of time (but actually, is nine years a long time? No time at all?? Is time even real??? All answers welcome.)).

I get the question “Why did you leave the US?” a lot. And, I say that I left (my good-enough job, my young yet long-term relationship, my apartment, my life as I knew it) because “the 9-5 life wasn’t for me.”

It’s a quick answer; a useful not-quite-truth that I’ve told (almost) everyone who’s asked.

I’ve told it in three languages, some more eloquently than others (I’ve never told it in German, since the only phrase I remember from Duolingo is “Ich muss leider arbeiten,” which fittingly means “I must unfortunately work.”). I’ve told it to Blablacar drivers, warm and curious new friends, and, now, the internet writ large (I wrote a whole flippin’ thing about this being THE reason I left (kind of)).

And I can hide behind the guise of “my unprofessional fortitude is so strong that I left an entire country behind,” all I want! (Are you waiting for me to get to my ever-loving point already? Comment down below 😘)

Obviously, I could have looked for a different job in DC. I could have gotten creative and opened a food truck, or started a homemade granola business, or sold my underwear online (all things I researched, none of them easier than moving continents (apparently)). So, obviously, there was something besides my job that I was trying to leave.

My then-boyfriend, from what I remember (a lot, as always), was wonderful. He was the funniest, most positive, most personable, most lovable person I had ever met (to be fair, we met when I was 17, so I hadn’t met that many people overall). I loved his curly hair and the scar on his hand and his crooked teeth (fun fact, I’m a teeth gal! weird!). He was wise beyond his very young years, and only ever treated me with kindness and respect (he had an incredible older sister (obviously)).

And he was the real reason I left.

So, my dear public online diary, this is where the passage of time has helped. Because I always knew the real reason I left. But it took years, like, a lot of them, before leaving truly felt worth it. Worth the unending heartbreak, as each step he took in his new life crashed over me, sending me spiraling through wave after wave of grief and self-resentment and inescapable regret.

I loved him more than anything. And, the more painful, telling, poignant truth of this was: I loved him far more than I loved myself.

Because, after all, I was just me. A girl with a normal, somewhat atypical past. Who had gone to college (like all smart kids do), gotten a master’s (because that’s what made sense (right?)), and landed a good enough job (that she really, really didn’t want).

And, through it all, my favorite part of myself was him. Dating him was my biggest achievement, the thing I was most proud of. Dating him was the greatest thing I felt I could do.

So, I left. Propelled by something deep in my chest, the smallest whisper of an internal flame that said I could do more. I could be more. I could learn to love myself more.

But only if I left.

My life up until international blow-up #1 was pretty normal, though not super typical. And if you’ve just déjà-vued yourself into a Matrix ketamine hole, know that, yes, I did write that exact sentence (“My life up until international blow-up #1 was pretty normal, though not super typical.”) in a previous nonsense self-history piece. God forbid a girl give herself a little bit of self-plagiarism as a treat!!

My life was normal, in that I followed the standard path of any good millennial: I grew up, went to college, majored in something great to learn but useless to the capitalist machine (holler at me, history majors), got a master’s in something I didn’t understand (who knew public policy was mostly ✨statistics✨), and got a decent enough job.

I don’t remember much from grad school ($20k of loans well-spent, babe!). But I have two standout memories (that aren’t academic, obviously): one happened on the very first day of class, and the other on the very last. Both show why I didn’t reallyyyy belong there, and, probably, why I quit my job and fled the country a year later.

1. On the first day, in none other than ✨statistics✨ class, we went around the room to introduce ourselves, our undergrad major(s), and what we wanted to work in after graduating (or something like that).

And my dear peers had real answers! They’d all double-majored in economics and world peace (I’m paraphrasing (and being a lil bitch)), and interned over the summer at XYZ Big Firm, and planned to use their graduated brains to lead and guide and consult the world to a better, more profitable place! (Very buena gente, I love you, but we all know I shouldn’t have been there.)

When it was my turn, I skipped over my summer, which I had spent working at a subpar Italian restaurant (the owner sometimes brought me plain tamales for breakfast, making up for the nonexistent tips). I lied and said I was a history and Spanish double major, when I hadn’t completed my Spanish requirements. I didn’t have any professional aspirations, so I said the only true thing out of my mouth that day: that my goal was to have a job where I didn’t have to go to work. Everyone laughed, and the professor said, “Let me know if you ever find it.”

(Sometimes life foreshadows its fucking self, doesn’t it?)

2. At our end-of-the-year something-or-other (was it a banquet? Honestly no idea), everyone received two superlatives, as voted on by the class. And, since I’m self-centered, I only remember my own (that’s a lie, I also remember who got voted Best Hair, and, Alex, if you’re reading this, I hope you and your magnificent coif are doing well).

I feel like I should have received Most Likely to Read Your Text Messages Over Your Shoulder During Class, because I did that a lot ($20k!!!!!). Instead, I got Most Likely to Go On a Yoga Tour of Southeast Asia, and, here’s the fucking kicker, The Chillest.

THE CHILLEST.

The thing is, I am not chill. I’m an absolute hurricane of word-spew and emotions and deep-buried ADHD symptoms (probably). An anxious, harebrained, raging Sagittarius on the hunt for the next life-altering dopamine hit. Aggressively Type B, if there is such a thing, but not really chill.

But, to my peers, I probably seemed really chill. I never double-checked my econ homework, never tried to fully understand statistics, and didn’t go to any job fairs (lie: I went to one, and was told I needed five years of experience to get a job at their company. At a job fair. Where the point is to get students to apply for your jobs. AND I’M THE PROBLEM??).

So, I took my The Chillest superlative home, told my roommate (who clocked the discrepancy right away (hi Ben ilysm)), had a laugh, and continued being a 23-year-old who had no idea how much she was about to blow up her life.

(And sometimes we foreshadow ourselves. To be continued.)

My life up until international blow-up #1 was pretty normal (details coming), though not super typical. Not super typical in that, in 1994 (I fucking warned you, didn’t I?), my parents willingly moved with a one-year-old (me) and a three-year-old (my brother) to Chengdu, China, to teach English (or do something else, because, honestly, I still don’t really understand what my dad’s job was).

I don’t remember much of the year we spent there (I was a baby, so I think that’s normal), but we went back often (at least until my brother and I no longer qualified for reduced-fare airline tickets). When I do remember something, it’s blurry and visceral, coming from a dream-like place that feels both familiar and not-quite-right.

I remember smells that I can’t describe, and how much I loved listening to the thick sound of cicadas during summer evenings. I remember a lot of people touching my hair, walking through giant plastic noodles to enter the supermarket, and the comforting taste of plain mantou bread. My mom carried me in a backpack while we were there, I got worms while we were there, my tiny conservative Mennonite grandma slid down the Great Wall of China in the snow while we were there. What happened when, I don’t know.

I turned two years old while we were there (again, not something I remember), and my mom says I was an easy-going, happy little kid…until we went back to Virginia. When we left China, I became difficult and strong-willed (I was a toddler, so odds are that had something to do with it, but apparently, the difference was notable). And, at two years old, I did something that I’ve done many times over as an adult. I cried to go home, with no concept of where in the world home was.

As an adult, I cried to go home while sitting amongst the plants at Madrid’s Atocha train station. While lying on a crashpad in an unfamiliar forest in France. While sweating alone in a near-stranger’s hot attic apartment in Germany. While stacking my clothes on the floor of a dark, sublet bedroom in Ireland.

And, like two-year-old Simona, I’m not sure I ever knew where I was crying to go. Regardless of where those tears were trying to take me, I can tell my difficult and strong-willed two-year-old self that I know how she feels, and that she isn’t alone. I can tell her that I don’t know if we’ll ever go back to the home we’re crying for. But, on summer evenings, I can still hear cicadas outside. I take her small hand in mine; it’s time to go listen.

And, somehow, I truly enjoyed living with (almost) every one of those roommates (call me a reckless extrovert, but only if I’m able to go sit alone in my room IMMEDIATELY after I’m done talking to you). Starting with the first apartment and two wonderful roommates to make the list, who I moved in with exactly one week after arriving in Murcia.

I had booked a room in an Airbnb for my first week in Murcia, because I figured a week was plenty of time to find a permanent place to live. Luckily, I was right (my buddy Jason was not so lucky, as he lived in a hostel for basically half the school year (and the other half he lived with someone who left traces of unidentifiable body hair on the kitchen scissors)).

I don’t often expect things in life to go smoothly. But one exception is finding a decent enough place to live with sound enough roommates (FUCK I forgot about the time I moved into an apartment in Valencia and moved out the next day because the owner knocked on my door at 10 p.m. to ask if I could get him 20€ from the nearest ATM so his pornstar girlfriend could take a taxi to her shoot at 5 a.m. and then accused me of stealing his phone when I went back to pick up my laptop charger that I forgot upon my hasty next-morning departure (I bought a new laptop charger (but I did almost send my passport renewal to his address which praise be to all the gods out there that my gut told me to send it to my old apartment instead))).

I went to meet my potential new roommates in Murcia a few days after I arrived. The apartment was beyond my (not very high) standards, the rent was dirt cheap (a literal tenth of what I had been paying in DC), and, most importantly, I could officially register myself as living there for paperwork purposes (I didn’t know how important this was at the time, but found out two years later when I last-minute fake-registered as living at a teacher-friend’s address and caused a minor legal debacle (eskerrik asko zuri, Leire)).

The roommates gave me the all-clear to move in, and they were the first of many to do so. I’m not very good at keeping in touch with people; moving every year for nine years doesn’t help. But I think about all of the people I’ve lived with often. I think about the times they repeated themselves when I didn’t understand, and the times they left keys out when I had forgotten mine. I think about shared dinners and borrowed coffee and extra chairs pulled up around crowded tables. Most of all, I think about all the times someone let a young not-an-expat, lost and running fast from a previous life, come make a home in theirs.

Thank you, I love you, 19 times over.

There have been times I didn’t write every day, but I can count them on one hand:

1. When I went backpacking on the Tour de Mont Blanc (I didn’t actually end up backpacking because it sucks. I did backpack-less day hikes, which also suck, but at least the views outweighed my back pain.)

2. When I finished five-year journal #2 during a two-month-long stint in Switzerland, but hadn’t yet bought five-year journal #3 (don’t worry I wrote every day in my notes app and then copied it over to journal #3 later like a normal person)

3. When I was horrendously depressed at the start of 2023 (was it long Covid or was it the horrors of working at a Catholic private school in France (these kids wore loafers, knee-high socks, and dressy shorts BY CHOICE))

All of this to say, I can tell you what I’ve done every day of my life since January 1, 2013 (try framing me for a crime I fucking dare you). Or I could have, if I knew where to find my five-year journal #1.

Journal #1 covered the years 2013 to 2017 inclusive, and I don’t know where it is. And some big stuff happened in those years! I graduated from college, got my master’s degree (which is more lost than the damn journal let me tell ya), moved in with my then-boyfriend (who well predated all these journals, do the math), and left for Spain shortly thereafter (re: international life blow-up).

But maybe it’s for the best that it’s lost. Maybe it’s good that I can’t read over what I did each day before I left, and wonder what would’ve happened if I had stayed (maybe I’d be real married now (or at least real divorced)). I spent years mulling over those what-ifs, agonizing over my choice to be in this timeline instead of that one. It’s hard to accept your envisioned future disintegrating before your eyes when you’re the one who decided to disintegrate it, you see.

But then, much later, you might start to realize something: that timeline was never meant for you. Disintegrating the future you thought you wanted, and the pain and regret and uncertainty it brought you for years, wasn’t just a choice; it was a gift. A gift that allowed them to live the life they wanted. And a gift that allowed you to live yours.

I made it a total of six (6) months at my one and, to this day, only full-time job before I accepted a position to teach English in Spain the upcoming school year and blow up my then-life. As a standard gifted-and-talented-child-turned-adult-with-anxiety, this was the most swift and efficient decision-making I’d ever done (at this point in life I actually had zero clue that I had anxiety, it wasn’t until a few years later when I was visiting friends in Colorado and explaining how I always got sweaty and heart-poundy and stared furiously out the window on every flight I’d ever taken (many) that my more emotionally-actualized friend (hi Suzy) explained that those full-body feelings were, in fact, anxiety).

A few things made this swift and efficient decision possible: I already spoke Spanish, had studied abroad in Spain, and have a family history of big international life blow-ups (re: my parents moving to West Berlin in 1982 to leave the Amish and not reallyyyy telling anyone that was their plan (my dad’s mom already had a suspicion when he left his carpentry job years prior to go to college and become a teacher, but my mom’s mom was quite surprised, whoops (I love you tiny grandma (she was actually very, very small)))).

That and I had a friend (hi Tierney) who was already over in Spain with the same English teaching program. I called her to ask questions about her experience (the only time I’ve ever networked, and she was my roommate in college so idk if it really counts), and her recounts of 16-hour work weeks (we weren’t real teachers, real teachers in Spain work a bit more (and also have beer in the teacher’s lounge fridge for special occasions)) and multiple two-week vacations had me sold (she also read me some messages she’d received from Spanish men on Tinder and we were laughing so hard that that’s actually all I remember).

I flew to Madrid with a single suitcase on September 20, 2017. I will not talk about the day I left because it makes my stomach hurt. But I remember the t-shirt my then-boyfriend was wearing when he dropped me off at the airport, and sometimes, I wonder if he still has it. I wonder if he remembers that day, remembers what he was wearing like I do. I don’t remember what I was wearing. I do remember the turbulent red-eye, collecting my single suitcase, telling immigration I was headed to Murcia (el acento es difícil allí, ey?), and heading to Atocha for my train.

Sleep-deprived and panicking over my decision, I called my dad from the train station, 3 a.m. his time, 9 a.m. mine. I asked if I could come back, pretend I never left, return to the life I’d just said goodbye to. He told me to catch my train and, if, after a week, I still wanted to come home, I could. I answered him quickly, honestly, through tears. “But if I go, I’ll never come back.”

24-year-old Simona knew something she didn’t want to know, and she was right. And, nearly nine years later, I can only be grateful.

(Imagine a graph where the years are on the x-axis (go off math queen) and the menty bs are on the y-axis. Wait but then where would the number of pages filled go? Is that the z-axis? Did I turn the graph into a cube? See this is why I don’t have a job.)

On page no. 2 of my Moleskine (why is there an e at the end? I guess it’s some guy’s name, and also it’d be kinda gross if it was called moleskin? Like the actual skin of a mole? Like the book is made from skinned moles? Yeah safe bet to keep the e on the end, good thinking marketing team really dodged a bucket of red PETA paint on that one) I write down a mantra at the start of each month. Things like “a little goes a long way” and “keep your bad-bitch-o-meter maxed out.”

And, at the very top of page no. 2, I write a mantra for the year (which honestly puts a lot of pressure on my January 1 journaling session to pick something good and meaningful and deep but not too deep for the entire rest of the year (also I’d rather be doing all this on the lunar new year but Greg of Gregorian calendar fame really has us in a chokehold over here) but at least I don’t have to do it hungover, as my drinking-more-than-half-a-glass-of-wine days are behind me).

For the last few years, I’ve used the same whole-year mantra, and, at the rate I’m going, I expect to use it for many more (so maybe it’s more of a life mantra at this point). Said mantra is:

“Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar.”

(This is from a poem by Antonio Machado, so it’s really less mantra and more plagiarism.)

I love this mantra. It’s probably my favorite sentence I’ve ever read. It reminds me of my dad’s life mantra (he doesn’t call it this, but he did write a book, and it’s the title), “crossing the river by feeling for stones.” It makes me cry and fills me with hope that what I’m doing is okay, that this is the way I’m supposed to be living, that I am a product of what came before me, and there’s no way I could be any different.

There’s no plan, no clear path, no bridge to the other side of life. So here I am, barefoot and a bit out of balance, wading through as best I can.

• paperwork marriages (but if any government employees are reading this, don’t worry, the most recent marriage is totally legit)

• unintentional life upheavals, along with some intentional ones

• every odd job and no real job

• heartbreak and divorce (unrelated)

• not-so-legitimate student visas

• hospital stays and STDs (or STIs, if you’re freaky)

• etc, etc.

Anyway, should all be a good time and a good read! See ya out there!

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