June 2022, Ecuador
I arrived in Guayaquil on May 24th. J picked me up from the airport and we took an Uber to our Airbnb. When we got to the apartment, I picked the room with the TV and the queen bed. I called my mom and showed her my room for the next two weeks. She was excited for me. When I got hungry, I made myself pasta, it was bow-shaped. In bed, I started ruminating. What if I wasn’t strong enough to do this? I had never lived abroad. I wanted to travel and see the world, but now I had to fend for myself. It was exciting and scary.
I went to sleep thinking I can do this, I can make my parents proud, I am tough kid. At midnight, I heard noises. The rest of my team had arrived. Now we were complete. I put on a bra and went to say hi. They were in the kitchen drinking water, I was sleepy, and after saying our hellos, I went back to bed.
Those first days together went by so slowly. We spent all day working on our laptops; we weren’t allowed to leave the apartment. The four of us quarantined for some days, and after our tests came back negative, we finally left the house and went exploring. We did everything touristy there was to do: the Museum of Modern Art, churches, and art galleries. Oh, and I can’t forget the Ferris wheel. We could see the Guayas River in its entirety from up there. It was beautiful.
One night, K went out with me to get deodorant; I needed it before leaving for the jungle. It was late at night and Guayaquil was dangerous. We ran through the streets holding hands and got lost. After going in circles, we found our hotel and went to bed, giddy. I felt closer to her than ever.
I woke on June 10th to the sound of birds chirping. Then I noticed there was a cat in K’s bed. The previous night, we had arrived at an ecolodge in the middle of the Ecuadorian jungle. Our room had no walls. If we are being technical, you couldn’t even call it a room; it was a balcony with two beds. K and I were mad about being given this room. It was above the boys, and they were so loud. We learned one of them loved La La Land. Immaculate taste, but please, kids, lower your voice!
I hated that room. But boy, did it have a view.
I had told N I wouldn’t have good signal in the jungle. After three nightmarish days there, I gave in and texted him that my signal wasn’t as bad as I thought. He said he missed me. For the next couple of days, I would use any free time I had to go to the only place with WiFi and talk to him.
Two weeks later, our bus got stuck on the river and our trip to Puerto Lopez got delayed for three hours. We gathered in the common room; some played cards, some read, and others just lounged on the couch. We said goodbye (again) to the jungle cat, mousey, who killed rats and left their corpses in the showers. She was the sweetest, most fierce cat I ever met. After five hours of extraneous travel, a bunch of teenagers asking how far we were every twenty minutes, and some stops to go to the bathroom, we finally arrived at our destination. A much-needed change of scenery— a beach town, a room with walls, a proper bathroom. It was perfect.
In Puerto Lopez, we volunteered at a turtle sanctuary. Most of them were there until they recovered from injuries caused by fishermen. Some of the turtles had lost their limbs and couldn’t go back to the ocean. We helped clean their pools and shells. One of them scratched my leg with its nails when I was taking it out of the pool. I still have the scar. It’s my favorite scar.
One night, N called me. He was wearing a red shirt; the first buttons were open, and I could see a tattoo on his chest. When I asked about it, he said the tattoo wasn’t done and didn’t want to show me. He looked good. I went to sleep worried. I was getting attached.
M, K, and I would gather around in K and I’s room, and we would talk about our love lives, how tired we were, and how much our job sucked. As a trio, we function funnily. The thing that was holding us so close was that we were alone in a country we didn’t know and we needed each other.
On June 29th, I wrote in my diary, “Loneliness is isolating.”I was having a hard time. Feeling too overwhelmed. I drowned myself in work. I wasn’t processing my emotions; if I had taken time to think about how I was feeling, I would not have been able to do my work otherwise. I tried to talk to my friends from home about it, but they couldn’t understand. You had to be there to understand.
June 2023, Panamá
I landed in Panamá City early in the morning, a day before June started. I was scared but confident. I felt better equipped than last year. I had experience, and I knew better now. I was picked up from the airport and taken to a mall so I could buy a SIM card and get lunch. At the mall, I felt out of place. I was the only person walking around with a suitcase in my hand. The wheels of my suitcase made a weird noise, and that attracted people's attention. Everyone looked at me funny. I looked ridiculous.
After another flight, I got to David. I was there for a day before leaving for Tierras Altas, the place where our project would take place. We slept in the house that would become our home for the next two months and left in the morning. We traveled back to Panamá City and stayed there for five days.
Days before leaving home, N texted me and asked how I was feeling. I was mad. He had ghosted for two months. After I got settled in Panamá City, I told him to call me. On the call, I said he was unreliable. I was harsh. I was trying to protect myself. He said I never texted him unless he initiated the conversation. It was half the truth. After our talk, I forgave him for disappearing. Back then, I always did.
Our house in Tierras Altas was so cold. It was next to the river, and it was lovely going to sleep with the sound of the water flowing through the rocks. But goddam, the house was so cold I had to sleep with socks so my feet didn’t freeze, and I hated sleeping with socks. In the morning, we volunteered. In the afternoon, we had free time. I tried going on walks by myself. I wanted to do a better job taking care of myself. The town was beautiful. People’s backyards were vegetable gardens and nurseries. Everywhere you looked, you could see life unfolding.
People were kind to us, as people always are in small towns. They welcomed us with open arms and open hearts into their houses. They invited us to have dinner with them. I felt good for a while. Until I didn’t.
After some weeks, I went into autopilot mode again. I had to if I wanted to survive. I didn’t write in my diary because I would then have to acknowledge that I was having a hard time, but I endured it. I was a tough kid, after all.
June 2024, Home
My hair smells like popcorn. I went to the theater with my family on Saturday. We watched Inside Out 2 and ordered caramel and salted popcorn. The smell of it still lingers in my hair. I’m not sure if I love it or hate it.
Someone in my family passed away recently. Unexpectedly. An accident. We weren’t that close, but his daughter is my best friend, and my heart hurts for her. I feel guilty about not feeling as much grief as the rest of my family does. They all seem so affected. I am more concerned with the family he left behind and how his death turned their lives upside down. I wish I could take their pain away, but I know I can’t. This turn of events has me wondering about what I am doing with my life. If I die tomorrow, will I die like him? Leaving lots of open ends?
A week ago, we went to the funeral. There were so many people there—lots of neighbors, family members, and friends of the family. He was a popular guy. People only had kind things to say about him. Those same people were also assholes. They gathered in front of his casket before his burial, crying and stopping to look at the faces of his family, waiting to see their reactions. It felt exploitative and morbid. I was with my mom, and she asked me to leave with her. She didn’t want to see him go down. Neither did I.
June feels like a recollection of bad and sad memories. I am trying my best to keep up with responsibilities, not scroll on my phone for hours, stick to my writing schedule, go to the gym. I am not doing a good job.
I’ve stopped looking at my body in the mirror. I can’t stand to look at it. Every time I do, I cringe. My hands go to my breasts and press, I try to imagine how I would look with a smaller chest. I think, what wouldn’t I do for a flat stomach? Surely, I wouldn’t do much because I don’t want to stop eating. I refuse to go back to that era of my life. Part of me feels bad about not restricting food anymore. That part of my brain, the sick one, tells me I am too lazy, too scared, and too mediocre to commit to something. Why can’t I be more greedy? Why can’t I do more? I always do the bare minimum. It is pathetic.
Two days ago, I started a new book, a romance one. It is so fun and cute, and I love it for the most part. Except that it is a book about people rekindling after ten years of not seeing each other. It reminded me of ‘Past Lives’. I watched it last August, and like many other movies we discussed together, I can't think about it without thinking about N. While watching it, I was texting him about the film. He had seen it a week prior and told me he wished he had seen it with me. I said I hoped it wouldn’t take us ten years to meet. He said, “God, I hope not.”
Before starting this book, I thought I was over it. I had stopped holding onto the what-ifs and the maybes in the future. Now I keep thinking: Are we going to meet in ten years? I’m not proud to say that a part of me wishes we do. Maybe I’m not as tough as I think.
I need to stop myself from reading all of your posts in one go. You are inspiring me so much with your style of writing - real, raw, unique, and so gentle. Thank you <3
Thank you for writing this beautiful, heartbreaking story. The sea turtle image took my breath away; I am so intrigued and impressed that you helped sea turtles at the sanctuary. I’m sorry that you lost someone in your family because of an accident. The shock of your loss sounds devastating, the grief like a ripple effect as it moves through every person in the family. I like the way you wrote about wanting to stay tough and strong in spite of everything, because I can relate to that feeling pretty well. Maybe people can be both tough and tender at the same time, because the human soul is complex and at times contradictory? You are a beautiful writer, and I love reading your intricate and artful pieces. Thank you for sharing this heartfelt story.