Saudade in Lisboa

Sitting on a bus heading back home from one of the most amazing weekends I’ve had in a long time, My thoughts are swirling.

Not in a bad way but in a “this year is ending and we are soon entering a new time, another year” kind of way.

I spent time with one of my absolute best friends and I have never laughed and cried so much. I miss her daily because in the misery of living in Germany she helped me. She kept me afloat and laughing.

I also had the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands live, Alter Bridge. I sang so loud and jumped so much that I had to pop out my inhaler twice. Then after the show one of my friends introduced me to Mark Tremonti. A man who’s music came into my life in a time of loss and a lot of pain. It’s poetic then that in a year of loss and struggling, I finally met him. I kept it together, turned and cried on Melinda’s shoulder.

Then talking to my friend I got a bit emotional. This past year was difficult for me in many ways and because he’s a good friend of my fiancé and I consider him a dear friend as well he knows of my struggles and the emotions took over and I cried some more.

My fiancé has been on the road for weeks and I miss him dearly. I’m sitting on a bus already missing my friends. Already missing that energy of screaming my lungs out at a show.

But this weekend felt refreshing. It felt like I have so many people who genuinely care for me. Who’d hurt if I ever hurt myself. I have a fiancé who’d flip the world upside down if it meant I would be okay and happy.

I think the world can be ugly. I think my struggles can sometimes feel like the end of the line but my struggles don’t define me. My tears don’t define me.

My love for my family and friends, my strength that keeps me afloat, and the laughter out of my lungs define the person I am, the person I am fixing and becoming.

I miss so many people and I miss so many experiences that have passed but man am I excited for the ones yet to come.

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Where the hell have I been??!

Hello there friends!

You might be wondering why I haven’t been updating my blog, and why in the past year I have been in and out of here on a very in consistent basis.

 

Well simply put: LIFE. Life happened.

 

For a more complicated explanation then please keep reading.

 

Back in September we moved from Germany to Portugal. It was chaotic as hell before the move, and even more so after wards.

 

I am very grateful that we were able to stay with my parents while we searched for our own place. We found the most amazing place for us and then had to move ALL OF OUR JUNK from my parents’ garage to our new place. While this occurred my fiancé (Oh yea, I got engaged!!) was working on the road.

 

Also grateful for my family’s help, without whom none of this shit would have been possible, and I would have definitely lost my mind and set something on fire.

 

Then we had the holidays which were wonderful. A few battles with the cold and flu. Then January came around and my fiancé (then my boyfriend) asked me to marry him right before he headed out on the road for 10 weeks. Typically, he’s not out for that long BUT, that’s what happened at the beginning of the year.

 

That’s where my mental health went to shit. Before you come in here spewing bullshit. NO it had nothing to do with him leaving for work. I had felt my mental health decline over the span of the move because it felt like we hadn’t had a moment to stop and breathe for MONTHS. It was all a blur of packing, cleaning, unpacking, packing, moving, cleaning some more, building furniture, unpacking. Let me tell you, we STILL have some boxes upstairs because FUCK it’s been exhausting.

 

I hit a very low point, that I would rather not detail here for both my mental stability and your own. Just know it was the lowest I have hit.

 

I got some help. I have been feeling better, but also extremely frustrated.

 

Why?

 

Because I no longer knew what the fuck I was doing with my life(professionally).

With my mental health hitting a brick wall, I stopped working. I had some sprinkles of work, but it dried out. I had zero motivation to bother finding more. I am fortunate enough that I have a partner that had kept us financially stable, but IT ANGERS ME. It angers me that I dropped the ball so bad because of how my brain was communicating with me. I have no other excuse other than I felt like shit and didn’t know where to turn.

 

Now things are looking a bit better, but I am still running into some shit where people want to pay me PEANUTS for a ton of work because they think “anyone can do what you do” SURE OKAY, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!

 

I am trying to be more positive about this work situation because I did get offered a really cool opportunity which I hope opens the gates to MORE opportunities. I am working on some other projects as well that I am excited about, but it will take some time before I am willing to post about any of it publicly.

 

What else has happened? We got a puppy!! Her name is Luna and she’s a German Shepherd! A beautiful girl who has been a lot of work and early mornings, but it’s been so good for me. Walks in the woods with her make me feel so much better when I start to get that anxious feeling growing in my chest.

Processed with VSCO with fp2 preset

Sadly our cat Arya is not a fan at the moment, so I have to divide up my cuddle time, but we are working on changing that.

 

What’s happening with this blog?

 

I really am aiming for a more consistent update schedule! I have some backlog of reviews that I am about to post. In general, I hope you stick with me.

 

I hit a really rough patch there, but I am coming out of it stronger.

 

See you in the next post!!

 

Always the Foreigner

If you know me, then you know my story, or at least bits and pieces of it that I have allowed you to see. The other day something popped up on one of my many social media news feeds that inspired this post. I thought to myself, no matter where I go these days, I am a foreigner. It’s not really troublesome to me, but it’s unique and a bit interesting to say the least. Let me take you back.

I was born in Portugal in 1986. I lived there for the first four years of my life. The picture was taken in Portugal with my older brother, who looks like he’s sporting a semi-mullet in this. (Business in the FRONT, Party in the BACK!) When people ask me, I have to be honest and say that at this point in my life I don’t have that many recollections of my early childhood spent in that beautiful country. When I am actually physically there, I can sometimes sense something that I could never explain properly in words. All I know is that, this place where I have only spent a handful of days in, feels like home. The thing is that I also feel like a foreigner when I am there. I will come back to that soon.

So we moved to the USA, to New Jersey to be exact when I was four. We lived on a street that had tons of other Portuguese families and I very quickly made friends with the neighborhood kids. When I entered school, that was a different story. Halloween came around in Kindergarten, and my mom wasn’t all that sure what the hell Halloween was. I am sure someone gave her a half assed explanation, “It’s like carnival, but not.” Our neighbor kindly let me and my mom pick one of her kid’s old costumes, and what did we pick? A GOAT. We thought it was funny, to be honest, I STILL think it’s funny. It just made me stand out like the little weirdo. Another little foreign kid whose family misunderstood what an American tradition was about. Didn’t we know that I was supposed to be a little princess, or a fairy, or a combination of the two? Or a Ghost Fairy Princess!!  Nah, I was a goat. This is just an example of how I always felt a little out of place in New Jersey. In NJ, I was the Portuguese girl. The one who’s family had a BBQ and there were sardines on the grill not burgers and hot dogs.  When I went to Portugal I was the American girl because well I had an accent, now that I am living in Germany…I just confuse the shit out of people.

“Can I see your Passport?”  Hands Portuguese Passport to them.

“I thought you were American.” I stare at them blinking slowly.

“Do you have an American Passport?” Sigh.

“NO. I am Portuguese. I Have a Portuguese Passport. I only had a green card in the USA but I handed that back. ” I explain.

“OH. It’s just that you sound American.” INSERT EYE ROLL

“Yes I spent most of my life there, but for all intents and purposes, I am Portuguese.”

I’ve had this conversation a few times, or some similar type of conversation about this here. Also there are those people who love to ask me this: “So how long are you here for?” ………… “I’ve been living here for five years.” ….”Are you staying?”…. I don’t know, CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHERE I AM FROM AND WHERE THE FUCK I AM GOING?!

For most of my life I have been a foreigner. I was a foreigner in the USA, in Portugal I was the American,but now I am the German, in Germany I am the American…no the Portuguese…no wait where Am I from again?

It’s not that I am having some kind of Identity crisis, all my experiences are making me who I am. A Passport doesn’t define much of anything in my eyes other than who’s most likely to get frisked at immigration when traveling to the USA. Still sometimes I do have to sit and wonder who I am, or where am I from? I never really know how to answer that question anymore, and really wish people could ask me something else.

Always the foreigner.

and that’s okay.

 

Why I Write

I don’t think I need to tell you that books mean the world to me. This is an obvious fact about me, and doesn’t need much of an explanation.

My love for reading very quickly bred a love of writing. I always enjoyed writing. I wrote ridiculous amounts of poetry as a teen and young adult that should never be published unless it’s going to be done in a comedic sense. Writing though, is not about perfection. Books on every level are a very subjective form of art. There are so many popular titles out in the world that I just did not enjoy. Just like there are many that I love, that others dislike as well. To be a writer you must first realize that not everyone is going to love your work, and the second thing to realize is that there will always be someone better than you. Seems daunting doesn’t it? It’s okay. We are all in this together. While these things may turn many people off from ever writing a single word of a story, it makes me want to tell my stories even more. So Why do I write?

To be a writer you must only do ONE thing, and that is to write. YOU HAVE TO WRITE. I consider myself a writer. I have spent countless hours writing thousands upon thousands of words. I am in the process of editing one book, while also throwing myself head first into research for another one. I have ideas written on notecards, notebooks, iPhone notes, and even a sandwich bag because my mind is constantly telling me stories. No this is not my way of admitting that I am crazy, although, I think to be a writer you need to have at least some dose of insanity somewhere within you.

What Inspires me?

I get asked this sometimes by friends or family. I think what originally inspired me was stories like Harry Potter. That series specifically burst open my imagination. The detailing, and just unique story made me realize I had characters and stories of my own running around in my head. Characters with loud personalities matching those of the people who I have crossed paths with. Characters with personalities matching my own. Quiet, shy, and ready to kick ass if necessary.

I have always had notebooks scattered about the house. Piles of them telling different stories of my own reality. It was only in the past 5-6 years that I realized that I wanted to write about the other characters my imagination decided to introduce into my daily life.

Possibly the biggest inspiration behind my writing, really the biggest of them all is Portugal. I was born there you see. In a beautiful city called Viseu, where at the age of 30 I have only set foot on its streets a handful of times. I was raised so far away from it, far from it’s cobble stoned sidewalks, it’s gorgeous parks, and beautiful architecture, that for most of my adult life I’ve had a hunger–no, an unstoppable desire to become better acquainted with a land that I barely know, and yet love unconditionally.

A place where family has grown, aged, and lived without me within their immediate bubble. I am inspired to create worlds around that longing, and the history of Portugal. I can’t explain it any further here. One day, with a little bit of luck and a whole lot of hard work, I will be able to share the stories this feeling has inspired.

Till then, I leave you with these words:

Telling a story isn’t about perfection. It’s about expression, emotion, and that feeling that you’re making something bigger than yourself.

I write almost every day. None of it perfect. Never let that stop you because it will never stop me.

 

The Art of Missing Out

I originally wrote this back in November while in Portugal. I decided it needed to be placed up here on my main blog. Check it out. 

me in Portugal

I have spent most of my life outside of the land I was born in. At first not by choice and then it was a decision I made.

Sitting here at 2:00am back in Portugal. I felt the need to write something that maybe no one understands. I left when I was four, but I think I forgot my soul here. Children are forgetful, and I left a piece of myself here.

I lived in New Jersey most of my life. It was never home to me. People always laugh when I say that because when I speak English I sound American. When I Speak Portuguese I sound American. When I speak German, yes I sound American. But I am not. I never became a citizen. It was not home. Sure I made wonderful friends. I wouldn’t change a thing about that, but I’ve felt lost for a lot longer than I realized and I’ve missed out on a life I will never know because it was never meant for me to meet.

I’ve missed out on a lot of things. I have watched young cousins grow up in splashes of time. Older relatives faces tell stories that I was never a part of. Does this make me sad? Well I think there’s a bit of sadness there sure. I would trade some aspects of my past to be able to have more memories with a lot of people. Then I look at how my life has worked out and how I’m currently sitting here again, and while I call Germany home, because it is my home, my soul may always live here in Portugal.

It’s an art really, to come back and each time feel like I’m meeting some people for the first time every time. But they’re so deeply embedded into my heart either way. Now as I watch my nephew beginning to grow here into someone who I am so proud of, my little niece who smiles more than any baby I’ve ever seen, I think about all the things I will be missing out on and how that breaks my heart.

Then I think about how much closer they are now, how much closer I am to the place where my soul lives. And there’s a joy there. One I am looking forward to exploring. It’s an art. The Art of Missing out.