Week 5: Saving Me on the Bulevar del Río

Dear You,

This week was… interesting. I think I learned a lot about myself.

We’re constantly discovering new things: about the world, about others, about who we are. And this week, that learning felt heightened. I realized just how far I’ve come in managing my emotional well-being and learning to sit with what I feel. When you name what you’re feeling: sadness, anger, irritation, disappointment, even bravery, try to take the time to trace it back to its root. You start to see your patterns more clearly. And once you see them, you can begin to break them.

Eventually, it becomes your responsibility to teach yourself how to respond to your emotions. This week, I felt sadness and irritation. But I refuse to spend my life consumed by those feelings, trapped in complaint and negativity. It’s my duty to feel safe in my mind, to create a space that is kind and calm. And I won’t be the one to tear that space down.

Instead of sulking at home, I pushed myself to go out to the Bulevar del Río. It’s a street where people dance, listen to music, and eat food. There were fireworks, music, and a deep, contagious joy in the air. It was Cali’s 489th birthday, so it was packed and I could barely breathe. But in the middle of all that, I felt like I belonged. I felt alive. And for a moment, all the weight I’d been carrying became a distant thought.

I tuned into the moment. I watched people sing along to music, salsa effortlessly in the street, take shots and laugh together. I watched the fireworks explode above us. I realized: there’s a life out there being lived even when we feel stuck, numb, or the farthest from alive.

No one is coming to save you, except you. Yes, there will be hard days, hard weeks, even hard months. But if you don’t learn to master your emotions, they will master you. If you carry a vision for the life you want, fight for it. Let your dreams carry you, and if they don’t fly, then run.

Vision is formed in solitude. Being alone in Colombia, I’m starting to see mine take shape. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Some days, I want to stay in bed and let the world pass me by. Other days, I want to quit everything and return to the comfort of what I once knew. And just when I think I’ve got it all figured out, it breaks again.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe your reality has to break again and again so the path forward can become clearer. Sometimes, things fall apart physically and emotionally, and just when you’ve poured everything into them. And you can’t help but feel sorry for yourself, like you’re the victim of something cruel and unfair.

We’ve all felt that. That deep, gutting ache when your world shatters around you. But maybe it had to. Maybe it needed to fall apart to make space for something new.

If you learn to master yourself, the shattering won’t destroy you; it will simply prepare you for the next rebuild.

This is all part of the in-between, when you’re in the middle of something that feels still but is constantly changing.

And maybe, you’ve felt it too.

From,

Cali, Colombia