from alicante, spain

learning that homesickness is a place & a person - with the rosy pink afterglow of the setting sun dusting los calles in a romantic light, the solitary stroll back to a home away from home in 23 degree weather, thinking i'll be home if i were here with you - how perfect it would be if we were taking on this journey hand in hand - but i close my eyes, turn on some good o' jay chou & vestiges of you start piecing themselves together again, until i see you lying on my bed back in my college room, until i am able to hold your face concretely in my cupped hands & plant a kiss on your lips. this way, i keep you alive in my head, por siempre, until i'm able to be home again.

but this distance is so important for me (& hopefully for you too), for me to remember that i had and still have a life apart from you. for me to remember how it feels like to have that incendiary feeling of invincibility rising in my chest from throwing myself into foreign, big & small cities that either speak english or almost completely don't, that continual personal growth is probably one of my most important life goals. that i am whole & full, first alone in God & in myself. the beauty of this is that you inhabit my heart but do not compose it, & in doing so we do not complete each other but complement & value-add to each other's lives. to have a life & career apart from each other is so important - it ensures that our relationship will never hinder, but always make both of us better persons. & the fact that you continually support my ambitious pursuit of personal goals even though they separate us geographically makes me love you even more - for embodying our first principles established together i.e. as mentioned above.

today, one of my close friends from rg shot me a dm with reference to how she finds my solo travels to faraway foreign countries inspirational & that other people on my feed would think so too, that in doing so i smash the stereotype of what a petite, twenty year old girl can accomplish. if you are reading this, thank you, thank you, thank you. after a week, life here has become so normalised that most of the time i forget that i am here alone, with my family & everyone i love living on (almost) the other end of the globe (new york was literally half but spain's not as bad). it sounds crazy but it's true -  i have to remind myself constantly that this is not normal, that i have become comfortable with the uncomfortable, that i am far more capable than i sometimes give myself credit for. that i have & am actually conceptualising a vague longing to learn spanish in the country of its origin ever since i embarked on learning this language. that i am now proficient enough to have very substantial & entertaining conversations with my host & her partner - about how corrupt spanish politicians are, unemployment particularly amongst youths, differences in cultures, how male chauvinistic this language is (which she didn't realise but later agreed with me) & about politics in sg etc. there are still hiccups in my grammar here & there but i am picking up things as i go along. sometimes this still feels like a dream, & i am so privileged to be able to partake in such an experience w/o predominantly spending my parents' $$$. i cannot wait to piece together a video of all the clips i took/have taken for posterity. i want to be able to look back on my youth & not harbour a tinge of regret, but feel immensely proud for achieving big things at a young age. so here i am, turning 21 in two days, by myself in a country i speak the fourth language of. so here i am, hoping for a more fruitful summer'17 over a summer'16 that's hard to beat in every aspect.