Sarah la Viajera
Sarah la Viajera

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A little bit of hope can go a long way. ✨ One day, and I’m actually not sure exactly when, in my American Literature class my junior year of high school, a small yet powerful thought popped into my mind. “I want to write a book.” The words danced across my mind for a moment but the roots of that thought started to sprout and stay with me in the back of my mind during class that day and beyond. I don’t know what exactly sparked that thought but I do remember how we were studying Whitman and Thoreau that quarter. (Still can’t say for sure if one of their works inspired me or not) What I can finally say is that yes, I did it. I wrote a book. Past tense. We did it, 16 year old Sarah! 🥳 It only seems fitting that I finished the last bit of the text and design components today on April 29th, 8 years to the day I flew back to Europe on my first post-study abroad trip. 🎉 Little did I know then that this is what my life would look like now. And that that dream I dreamed of so long ago is almost a very tangible, real-life thing. I still remember back then thinking about how I wasn’t a very good writer and that several other classmates definitely wrote much better essays and stories than I did. I’m glad I didn’t believe those lies from the past. Or get crushed by my own self-inflicted pressure to write a book before age 30. Most of all, I’m glad I kept at it in terms of writing. That was one of the key factors to my success today. I may not have been the best writer as a teen but take that experience and add 16 more years of practice and you’ve got yourself an experienced writer (who actually refers to herself as so and embraces it fully) 💗 You don’t know how long it will take you to achieve a goal or a dream. Just know that the time will pass anyway but when you get there, the reward will be so sweet. 📚👩🏻🤓📝 (First 📸: roses in my neighborhood blooming on the wall of a school; second 📸: 25 year old me in front of a tram in Lisbon after 30 hours of travel in 2013. I loved that layover on the way to Sevilla. Two places I’d love to go visit right now 😍😭)
In the last year or so, I’ve learned a lot of lessons that have had a profound impact on how I view the world today. In the year and a half that we’ve been married (though it feels like so much more time has passed), I never could’ve imagined myself not wearing my engagement ring for most of this time. It started as keeping it safe while we were on lockdown and home all the time to keeping it safe from sticky hand sanitizer and my absentmindedness, not to mention that it’s a very delicate ring. It has certainly been strange but I am not as sad as I imagined I would be the day I tucked it away carefully into its box. In hindsight, both of us putting our rings away for safekeeping is a small sacrifice to make, though, we don’t know how long we’ll keep them off. What’s the deeper lesson you can draw from my experience? ✨ I hadn’t actually stumbled upon what I’m going to share until about a week ago. The realization is that we don’t *actually* need external reminders of who we’re with and the commitments we make. How many movies or shows have we seen where one of the characters takes off their wedding ring and acts completely different around an attractive person? As I think I said last summer, ring or no ring, nothing has changed in my heart for how I feel about mi marido, @andrewrgillan, and the commitment we made to one another. I get that taking your ring off for some unknown period of time would devastate some women (thanks societal pressure) but it’s truly not the end of the world if you are remaining with your partner while it’s off. What if one day you break your hand or fingers? The more important lesson I have learned is to ask yourself (if you’re married) “how will you act on a daily basis around all types of people if you had to take your ring off for x time?” 🤔 It’s been a lesson about another side to integrity that I hadn’t even considered. (Photos from 2017: 1-Sitting in Puerta del Sol in the exact same spot we’d get engaged the following year, 2-the pier (muelle) walk one night in Huelva where everything changed for us and 3-strolling on the beach in Málaga with my engagement ring for the first time ever, a few days before Gibraltar)
On February 29th, 2020, we took what would be our very last day trip for a while and what would become the very last day I’d wear makeup in 2020. I had run out of liquid foundation that same day and spent the next two weeks not even wearing makeup. It wasn’t until Spain went into lockdown for what would be 15 days at that point (turned out to be a total of 50 straight days with no exercise privileges) that I consciously decided to not wear makeup. I didn’t see a point since I didn’t have any Zoom meetings to attend or a husband to re-impress (he prefers me without makeup anyway). And you know what? I’ve spent just over the last year not wearing an ounce of makeup. 😮💅🏻 ✨ I haven’t painted my fingernails since we got married. Haven’t worn lipstick 💄 since our wedding day either. The list goes on... How does it feel? I feel freer than I ever have in my life. I have sort of defaulted back to my early teen years when I wasn’t even into makeup, reading books, letting my imagination run wild and being my truest self. It has been the most refreshing feeling in the world and while I don’t know if I will fully return to it, I will savor how confident and free ditching makeup has made me feel. If I could go back in time and encourage myself to not conform to some of the lies society tries to shove down our throats as women (fast fashion, full faces and seeing who can have more flawless skin), I’d go back to when I was 23 and getting eyeliner put on at a friend’s wedding. While most girls had been applying that since they were like 15 or 16, I had not been and my eyes twitched like crazy. At the time I thought something was wrong with me, that I missed learning something so crucial to being a woman: knowing how to apply her own makeup. It turns out that doesn’t really matter in the long run and this past year I have been reminded what does: washing your face, applying moisturizer and sunscreen, night cream (hey, early 30s, sup?) and exfoliating to name a few. These are things I’ve already been doing for a few years but with consistent work since last spring, I’ve really noticed a new shine and glow on my face. Do you think you could last as long as I have? 🤔
Happy Birthday, @andrewrgillan! Where would I be without you this past year? 🤗 We’ve navigated some uncharted waters, lots of uncertainty and changes to last us for a long while since your last birthday. Thank you for making me laugh so much in the last 365 days and loving me so well. You joked way back before we were officially together that you were just looking for a woman who could put up with you but I often wonder how you can put up with me and my crazy antics and misadventures sometimes! 😂 I pray this year will be much more low key, you’ll get to do more of the things you love and that we’ll get to visit some new places together. 👫💜💙🦊🐿 I love you so much, mi media naranja 🍊😘
One night earlier this month, I dreamt I was trying to find my way but no place or path could take me there. Every place I tried felt like the wrong one and every path just brought me towards more people and problems I didn’t want to get myself into. But the most startling thing was that while in reality I was wearing a mask but in every reflection, in store windows and mirrors, I didn’t see it on my face. That paradox has been coming back up in my thoughts and haunted me the week I had that dream. What could that possibly mean? I have a couple ideas and many more thoughts to still share about last year but there are some things I’ve yet to fully process. Can you relate? Like everyone, I’ve been trying to make sense of the world we live in today for a long time now but I feel that based on that dream, my subconsciousness is finally trying to catch itself up. 2021 has gotten off to an odd start and while I vowed to stay cautiously optimistic about it, I’m only just beginning to feel like there are new possibilities around the corner. It’s funny how a blizzard hitting the city where you currently live dumping record amounts of snow (thankfully it is almost 💯 gone!) can make you feel like you have a clean slate and a fresh start. If you are uncertain or vulnerable in terms of health though, just know that I am thinking of you often. I have gotten a little too bit annoyed with the foggy state my mask 😷 leaves my glasses 👓 in the past couple of months but that doesn’t mean I want to take it off. As much as I want to at times, it’s not the right time yet. It’s gonna be tough road ahead but I will keep taking it one day at time. One step at a time. 👣 I hope you, wherever you are, will do the same. 💗🤗🥰
To think that last year I celebrated my birthday “normally” but back then I had what would be considered a quiet birthday. But with the state of the world today...going to teach one of my classes in person, munching on a chocolate chocolate chip cookie and drinking chocolate outside on a bench (RIP Calle Fuencarral Tim Horton’s 💔) and meeting a friend for a taco dinner are a few of the things I would love to do today, especially without foggy, misty glasses. Little did I know what the year would bring and I don’t think any of us truly did... 31 was an odd year in many ways. It’s similar to 21 (in my opinion) where you’re getting farther away from the teen years but you don’t quite feel settled into your new decade. Except when you’re that age, the excitement of being an adult stays with you. On the contrary, 10 years later you’re very much an adult but you’re not used to being this experienced. It’s a little hard to put into words but when you throw in a global pandemic (which is still going on) and still getting used to the newness of being married, it makes for quite an interesting year. Nevertheless while the past year did not look like I had hoped it would look, it was a year of exponential inner growth for me. A year where I could really take a step back from the big picture (and everyone), find time to rest, cultivate new habits and discover some new ones (🌱🖍 🖼 🏡) and never give up on old ones (📝📷☕️🙏🏻📚 🎶). I can certainly say I’ll never forget the things and events that came to pass while I was 31. But today I am grateful to be given the privilege of growing one year older. Not everyone was blessed with that this year and they will be remembered. 💗 32 has both scared me and excited me, and it honestly doesn’t feel like it’s time for my birthday just yet but nonetheless it is here. When I was 16 I thought of being this age because it would be double that age. I thought about it again when I was 27 because sadly my oldest cousin passed away at this age from battling cancer. 💝 Regardless of what this year will bring and if we will still be struggling with the challenges that 2020 brought, I hope you will choose to be grateful. 🙏🏻💗
Today I got to recover part of the school year that I’ve really come to love over the years: seeing how much a student has grown (physically). Thanks to mapping out an errand to run in the area where I used to work in and give in-person private English classes, I got to run into my oldest and most beloved student in Madrid. This is our 5th school year together and going on our 4th year of forming a really special teacher-student bond. Canillejas and the larger district of San Blas are a very Spanish, working class neighborhood of Madrid. Dozens upon dozens of families live there and one of the things that’s almost always present is the sounds of children’s voices and laughter. Its residents are tough yet extremely proud of where they live. I only saw my student after she got out of school for the lunch break (where they go home) for less than 5 minutes but just seeing her in person filled me with so much joy. 💗 She has the coolest handmade Pusheen mask and is now nearly as tall as me! Her growth spurt as she launched into adolescence this summer really made a mark. It was a quick check-in but those few moments allowed me to turn back the clock and for just a short, fleeting moment pretend as if everything was normal once again. The familiar sidewalks, my usual metro commute on my way back home, the dozens and dozens of trees lining Calle de Alcalá. It felt so normal and so good to experience it even for what now feels like a split second. So for today I feel a little more like myself and more connected to Madrid than I have lately. ✨🌃 🚶🏻‍♀️ @madridnofrills
Around this time last year, we had just wrapped up our apartment search and our first two weeks of marriage spent living out of multiple suitcases and a storage unit was coming to a close. However, the *big* stuff was just on the horizon. Though I had waited close to the better part of a decade of adulthood to finally be married, nothing could have prepared me for the experience itself, as much as I had talked to other married couples, read books and blogs and listened to podcasts. (@dearyoungmarriedcouple 💗) ✨ Yet, I remember very clearly during that first month as I was commuting to/from my classes via the metro an overwhelming feeling of not knowing what to do. I absorbed a ton of material from online devotionals, podcasts and blogs. Anything I could get my hands on about married life, I was probably reading it. I suppose looking back on that time, I did those things because I was fighting off a fear of failure and a desire to be the best wife I could for my husband. There was a lot of hidden shame wrapped up in all of that and it came out when I wasn’t at my best or I had ruined one of our dinners 🙈 ✨ We eventually found our footing, got into a rhythm, recovered it a few months later (hey, 2020 👋🏻) and I realized that though I could read all there was about what a healthy marriage should look like, I had to take things with a grain of salt. And remind myself that just because something worked for another couple, doesn’t mean it will work for us. The five love languages have been a common theme in our relationship and one we’ve discussed many times. So, it seemed fitting for us to receive a 5 love languages based Bible on our wedding day, as well as a couple of marriage focused devotionals to help us on our journey. Feelings and “feeling like it” have come and gone but I’ve come to cherish this new, steadfast love we’ve cultivated, @andrewrgillan 💕 It’s a lot of work but when you’re with the right person, you don’t mind it at all. 🥰 Books featured: Happily Ever After by John Piper and Francis Chan • Nuestra Mejor Vida Juntos by Joel Osteen • The Love Languages Devotional Bible
✨ 6 years in Spain ✨ What an indescribable experience it’s been. But here’s my attempt to describe it through these photos from February 2020 all the way back to September 2014. One of my last day trips (to Ávila) before the pandemic began. Our wedding (an American and a British man), which wasn’t in Spain at all. Receiving a dozen roses for the first time ever in my old (favorite) apartment on Valentine’s Day 2019. Visiting Andalucía (Huelva and Palos de la Frontera) in the winter in 2018. My first time going to the Madrid Open 🎾🇪🇸 in 2017. Seeing stained glass inside Casa Lis in Salamanca in 2016. Going to Entroido in Verín (Galicia) dressed as a lost tourist/map of Ohio in 2015. And the photo before any of these events took place: just before boarding an overnight bus to NYC from Ohio with all my personal belongings for the next 9 months ahead of me in 2014. I knew coming back over here to live would change my life but I didn’t know just how much! 😅😍 I’ve had my fair share of high highs and low lows here but other than home, this is the one country where I feel like I fit in. I mostly know how things work 📝😅, the places to visit and explore are endless and discovering why I love the language lights up my heart day after day. Here’s to starting year number 7. Te quiero, España 🇪🇸❤️ Gracias por dejarme quedar y enamorarme más de ti.