The way we define love changes as we grow. I remember when I thought it meant a Valentine’s Day card. Or when it felt like waking up to no school and fresh waffles. Today, it’s an entire week: Carnaval.
I originally wrote this on the way home from Rio. I was sitting at the airport, realizing I left my tapioca sandwich thing (I don’t know what it’s called) at the Airbnb I had been sharing with my lovely friends. Rio seems like a place I’ve been preparing myself for. All the dancefloors, learning to watch my surroundings, and finding ways to connect with strangers across language barriers. Carnaval requires all of these skills and more. The city oozes passion, with partygoers flooding the streets, trains, and beaches. Even with all my preparations, I don’t think I was fully prepared to share myself with this city as I did. You start to see yourself in ways that you hadn’t previously. You carry yourself a little taller, laugh a little brighter, and stare into strangers’ eyes a little longer.
Carnaval was a lesson in the power of being. Doing what you feel called to do, following the music where it takes you, and not holding onto the things that simply were not meant to be. I’m learning to stop fighting the guidance, in all the many ways it manifests. This trip it’s been winding up staying right next to a friend you thought would be in another area, running all the way to the beach only to have an alarm go off as you turn to high-five your friend, and mindlessly ordering a (overpriced) double espresso and empanada de carne that costs exactly the amount of reales you have left in your wallet.
All of this happens as I mark a year from my letter to a future me that I wrote…a year ago lol
I am retracing my words and I am putty. I laid the bricks here (there) and I continue to fill in these gaps and crevices of my making. Each line has shown itself and come to fruition. Yes, while there remains work to be done, I also see how far I have come. It’s been a year of more: more adventures, more randomness, more caring and loving, and more being.
I’ll sit and think a bit more before I write another letter.