I forgot I was in another country

In the midst of my nightly routine of sending Instagram reels to friends and family every time I laughed at one, I realized that thought in the back of my mind, usually screaming “you’re in Portugal,” was briefly not there.

For a moment, I was out of my body, looking at myself, looking at my phone, lying on my pillow (actually, the owner’s pillow that I’m technically borrowing, and the only things that are truly my own are scattered among things that will never be mine).

My heart felt like it dropped a few centimeters as I came back to consciousness that I was 16 hours away from my friends and family.

Familiarity, now scattered across the world.

This place I now know every corner of, a place so out of reach from my regular life, that I may never actually see it again.

My world is so small. The world is so big. I am so small.

But again, why is this all hitting me now? I grew up moving around so much that I never actually had one childhood home. Even now, my parents don’t even live in the house where I spent the most time.

It wasn’t until the next day that I realized the connection between forgetting I was in another country was likely because my world is already all over the globe. Now, it’s only different because it’s my choice to continue widening it. And I’ve done so, alone.

It makes my heart race, my head ache, and my body feel a bit uneasy. I need to hide under my bed and go run 5 miles at the same time.

Yet, as unsettling as the feeling was at first — trying to grasp the scale of my distance from the people I love — I think I love it.