i am mindalae after all

I’ve just spent the past month and half traveling, and I’m still struggling to gather my bearings.

The English speaking language comes too easy. And even that feels uncomfortable. Like I can cross over to my other identity with no problem. Shed home way too quick.

This year. Damn THIS YEAR. Has been a wild ride. One I’m incredibly grateful for. One that keeps me on my toes. Project after project, gig after gig. Walking, plane, car, place, plane, learn, stumble, plane, land, water, train, plane, bus.

Hey, this is not a complaint in any way. It’s a catching of breath after 7 months in the year 2023. I’m incredibly, enthusiastically grateful for it. For the places I got to see, for the people I’ve met. For the lands I got to feel, for the things I’ve experienced. All because of work and my drive to keep going, learning, advancing.

My mom would never let me say “I’m bored” growing up. The moment those words came out of my mouth, she’d put me to use my hands or brain in some way. There’s no time to be bored. There’s too much to do!

While that did cause me to be anxiously attached to the work grind, I am also grateful. Yes, again, grateful. It’s one of the many things that’s made me who I am. It’s what led me to experience many, many things in life.

Like living in the Ecuadorian Amazon for a year (specifically a Kichwa community close to Tena), like learning how to cook properly for myself by working in a kitchen in Oaxaca, Mexico. Like touring bars in Berlin in the coldest of winters, meeting people I’d never see again. Like deciding it would be a good idea to spend time in New Mexico, retracing the steps of the anthropologist that documented my family. The people I met there are definitely still in my life thankfully 🥰

This and so much more.

What am I trying to say?

Maybe that I’m trying to gather my bearings. Maybe it’s an attempt to remind myself that I’ve done this before. And that it’ll be okay. And that it doesn’t make me less me. Maybe it reinforces me. The coming and going and going and coming.

It’ll be okay.

And the cool thing… is that I get to keep doing it :) visiting, seeing, experiencing, traveling as much as I can.

It’s comforting.

I am a Mindalae after all.