All of a sudden I feel the ground beneath my feet and woah, I wasn’t expecting to land here.
I look around, holding on to the nearest wall (or tree or fountain or statue?) as I get used to gravity again. Is this what life looks like? Is this what living feels like?
Mars was lonely. It was so strange to sit floating in space while looking at Earth from afar. I was trying so hard to find my way back. Every now and then I would shout “helloooo! anyone out there! I want to hang out!” and every now and then someone would hear me and send a spaceship out to pick me up, but just for the day. A day here, a day there, searching to feel something, anything, anyone.
I had completely forgotten what living felt like.
Now, I’m finally back on Earth. It just sort of happened. I caught a wave to Barcelona, not thinking anything of it. I figured I’d come out for a year, still floating, still not sure what gravity was supposed to feel like. And then boom! Out of nowhere. De repento, all of a sudden, one morning, I got out of bed and put my feet on the ground. The ground! It’s here! And my feet are touching it! So this is what gravity feels like.
Everything feels so familiar even if it looks different. A different continent, language, people. But the feelings are the same. Community, creativity, collaboration, connection, cultural encounters. It feels the same but there’s something different this time. A certain wholeness to the feeling, as if the gaps between the different parts of me have gotten smaller. As if I don’t have to reach so far and try so hard to be all versions of myself at the same time.
It could be the Mediterranean, which I’ve known all along. It could be the creative synergy in BCN, which I didn’t know about before. But it’s 1000% the community, which I had completely forgotten about. I had forgotten how important people, connections, and relationships have always been to me. Of course, Mars was lonely, Shab.
So I look around, holding on to the nearest wall (or tree or fountain or statue?) as I get used to gravity again. The ground still feels like it’s spinning but everything is coming into focus as I watch my life flipping on its head. I smell smoke but it’s not the fire that burnt me out— it’s a new fire that ignited recently, thanks to time, patience, the new people in my life, pizza, and the goddamn Aries in my moon or whatever part of me needs this fire to thrive.
Let’s try to not burn out this time. <3