A Message To My Younger Self

If my younger self could see the life I’ve built today, she probably wouldn’t believe it.

If she knew everything we would do, all the places we’d go, while she was sitting at home drawing horses and houses every day, her little mind would explode.

I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember: pencil and paint to paper, oil painting classes, even hours spent in front of my dad’s Macintosh drawing on Paintbrush together when I was 5. Creating always a way of being. All I dreamed of was drawing.

Even studying architecture in university, which I once saw as a pause, became an expansion, adding depth to my perception, my skills, and the way I see the world.

If I hadn’t studied architecture, I would not have had my exchange year in Italy, or visited Barcelona for the first time, falling immediately and powerfully in love with the city I would come to call my home for a third of my life. I would not have met my future husband in a random bar in London – Catch22, IYKYK – because of deciding to go spend a summer in Europe travelling between Paris, Venice and London studying design, because I was feeling so sick and stagnated from wasting my life away in a toxic architecture studio in my hometown in Brazil. I wouldn’t have decided to come to Barcelona to continue my studies in architecture in a Masters degree, and all of my experiences of delight in this city and frustration with my professional path wouldn’t have led me to the Great Quarter Life Crisis (AKA Saturn Return) that led me to pivot from architecture to illustration and art — bringing it all full circle, to all the hopes and dreams of that little girl sitting in front of How To Draw.

Looking back, I can see that everything unfolded exactly as it needed to, in its own timing. And it continues to.

Like many creatives, I’ve had moments of doubt. Times when I’ve been overly critical, focused on what’s not working or what I haven’t done yet. But when I pause and see through the eyes of that little girl, it all shifts.

There’s perspective, and gratitude.

And the best part is knowing this is only just the beginning, and I have so much more to give. ✨

Now it’s your turn. What would you say to your younger self? How can you look back at perceived failure or delays and understand it all fits together in the timeline of your life?

PS: It is blowing my mind to see the parallels between photo of little me and this portrait photographer Enric Badrinas took of me more recently at Pasaje Montoya in Barcelona.