Reintegration

Will I remember this at all?

Hopefully

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how it will feel to go back to regular life. And I ask myself the same set of questions:

“Will I be the same exact person I was before I left?”

“Will I be able to remember how this felt?”

“Will I remember this at all?”

When I found about my layoff — and for the first couple of months afterwards — I couldn’t figure out how to function. I cried over what I considered a stain on my resume, one that would leave me undesirable. I struggled to fill my days with routines that didn’t center around spreadsheets, emails, and productivity. I stared into the unknown with absolute horror, because I couldn’t stand to let anything go wrong. This complete fear of not having security and not serving the needs of someone else — of just letting myself exist — was what had to be dealt with.

As I picked up Spanish in South America, my favorite word became, “ojalà.” It was one of the first words I learned in Columbia, and my friends and I would say it often. Does this bus driver know what he’s doing? ¡Ojalà! Will we still make it to the club after drinking a bottle of Aguardiente? ¡Ojalà! Will we ever meet again? ¡Ojalà!

Ojalà, if you didn’t catch on, means something like hopefully or let’s hope so. It’s borrowed from the Arabic term inshallah, but doesn’t carry a religious meaning. I used the word ojalà often (always to the amusement of native speakers), and it began to carry significant meaning for me — it defined my trip, and defined the experience of just existing. Hopefully, it all works out, but I’ll be okay if it doesn’t.

And so I knew ojalà would be the way I would remember this feeling, this trip, this experience long after it ended.

Yes, I got ojalà tattooed inside my elbow. To a person looking directly at me, it reads upside down — but that’s intentional. This tattoo isn’t for others. It’s a reminder for me. (Embarrassingly enough, I remembered later that one of my friends in Medellin did it first, but he forgave me.)

And as I’ve stared down at ojalà over the past few weeks, its significance to me has only grown. It’s balanced quiet optimism with poised acceptance; it acknowledges the weight of the world while embracing the possibility of change.

Global News

I went back and forth for for days about sharing my thoughts on the heightened Middle East crisis. It’s an ongoing crisis that I — like many — have studied closely for some time; to skip its mention on an update about my thoughts, my actions, my comings-and-goings, felt dishonest. However, I won’t proselytize here. If you do read thought articles about the crisis (which I very much hope you do), may they be from credentialed experts, fair-minded organizations, first-hand storytellers, and varied news sources — not from me.

As we make our way through the public discourse, however, there are a few reminders I’ve shared with others (and myself), that might be helpful here.

• Multiple truths can exist at once. That’s often how we’re misled — half truths, missing data, and conveniently-left-out stories. Don’t believe what you hear wholeheartedly. Piece together the full version of the truth to inform your stance.

• We’re all entitled to have an opinion — that’s just a consequence of our increasingly globalized world, as well as our shared humanity. However, we’re also responsible for rooting our opinion in the lived experiences of those who are directly impacted, as well as analyses by experts. Beware of armchair analyses.

• Be skeptical. There is no such thing as an unbiased source, or an unbiased person. Consider why someone is telling you something as much as what they’re saying. Understand the track record of the sources and people that inform you. Be curious about what’s not being said. Let all this inform you as well.

These are reminders that I’ve applied since adolescence to every debate, every discussion, and every public opinion; their importance (and the difficulty of following them) has only grown.

---

What I’m Reading

Currently, I’m in Alicante, another town where I’m spending most of my days on the beach (I’m enjoying it while I can!). The Girl With The Louding Voice, by Nigerian author Abi Daré, is my current read. Set in Nigeria and dealing with serious social issues at the intersection of gender and class, it tells the story of a young woman that just won’t give up. It’s beautiful, inspiring, and a incredible story.