Letters from Madrid - Part 7

I wrote my last letter from Madrid on May 1st. Almost two months ago.

A lot has changed since then.

I feel more calm. More settled. More at peace.

And not a minute too soon! Cause, yo, I was in a bad place. I was this close to packing my bags and going back to NY.

What a wild ride this whole experience has been and I’m only 6 months in.

Today’s letter is dedicated to all the mujeres thinking about moving abroad because I want you to know that it’s doable.

That it’s hard but not impossible.

I want to encourage you to stay the course if this is something you’ve been wanting for yourself and your family.

Because making a move like this is something everyone should experience.

Living abroad teaches you a lot about yourself.

It exposes your trigger points, your insecurities, and your fears.

It will make you realize that when someone says you should adapt, that shit gets your heart racing. Because you’ve heard this before. And while others might find adapting just part of the process, in your heart you know it means so much more than that.

It could mean changing the way you talk, the food you eat, or even the ways you show up in certain spaces. And for some of us, we’ve already negotiated this. We’ve already said take me as I am. We’ve already drawn the line. And we’re not crossing that line again.

EVER.

When you’ve already lived as someone who is "ni de aquí, ni de allá," adding another place where you don't belong hits different.

And this is a part of the journey that few people can relate to.

For a while there, I wasn’t trusting my own feelings, my own instincts.

I was feeling like a failure at the transition process.

Like somehow I wasn’t doing it right.

I had to reach deep inside - and I mean DEEP - to reveal what was really happening. What I was really feeling. And WHY.

Why was this all feeling so uncomfortable for me and why was talking about it with other expats (many without my lived experience) making me feel worse?

It felt like I was breaking. Like I was losing myself. Like everything I knew about who I am was a lie. And that was a really fucked up place for me to be.

I’m in a better place now.

I feel like I’ve turned a corner. I feel like I’m back on the right track.

Having my cousin visit me here really helped me.

It allowed me to showcase what I’ve learned about Madrid in the short time I’ve been here.

It allowed me to notice how my cousin handled herself in many of the same situations I struggled with.

It allowed me to see how she navigated situations with confidence and grace and how I might be able to do the same.

Listen, we are always learning. Always growing. Always reinventing ourselves. And moving to another country forces all this to happen at the same time. Out loud. On steroids.

We can learn from it and come back to ourselves. Or we can lose ourselves in the process. I’m choosing to come back to me. To home base. To what I know. To the certainty of who I am: a strong, resilient woman who can do hard things.

And honestly, it feels great. To be back in that familiar place. To trust myself. To know that this will just be another challenge I overcame. Another hill I had to climb to get to the other side.

In just a few weeks, I’ll be back in New York to finish packing the rest of my things, put some stuff into storage, and give up my NY apartment. It’s been really hard paying two rents and two sets of utility bills for the last few months. It’ll be nice to see my savings go up instead of down.

AND

It will be hard not having a place of my own back home. A place to soft land when I’m back in the states. A place where all of the furniture is mine and where everything is familiar.

This is the process. This is the journey.

Moving abroad is not all rainbows and sunshine. I just had a whole conversation with Cepee Tabibian, the CEO of She Hit Refresh (the community that helped me in my transition to Madrid). We talked about exactly this.

Once the honeymoon is over, you better be ready for what comes next. Buckle up baby because the ride will be bumpy AF, your confidence will be tested, and you might find yourself questioning whether the move was the right thing to do.

But hang in there. Because maybe, like me, you will start to see glimpses of the other side. You will start to gain your confidence again. And you will start to feel like the Queen you are and always have been.

Stick with it amiga! You got this!

As a treat for staying all the way to the end, I’m sharing some photos from a recent photoshoot I had here in Madrid. ENJOY!!