I’ve always wondered if people who only know me in English would even recognize the version of me that speaks Portuguese.

Some songs belong to one language. Mr. Brightside reminds me of college bars in Pennsylvania. Como Eu Quero reminds me of road trips in Brazil. If you translate the lyrics, they’re still songs. But they aren’t the same memories.

Portuguese: Saudade.

Translation: Deep melancholic longing for a person, place, or thing that is absent

What it actually feels like: Missing a version of your life that no longer exists.

Secrets are strange, too. I can tell someone the exact same story in English and Portuguese.

Same words. Same facts. Different vulnerability. For some reason, telling someone a secret in Portuguese feels like handing them something much more fragile and vulnerable. Portuguese is where my childhood lives, and it’s the language my family loves me in.

Italian: Magari.

Translation: Maybe.

What it actually means: God, I hope so.

Maybe because some emotions have an accent.

I don’t know.

Which brings me back to the quote TikTok keeps showing me.

I used to think that meant dating someone who speaks Portuguese. Now I am not so sure.

I recently realized that two people can speak the exact same language and still need subtitles.

When one person says, “It’s not a big deal.”

And the other hears, “You shouldn’t feel this way.”

One person thinks they’re talking about the event. The other thinks they’re talking about them.

Suddenly, no one is having the same conversation anymore.

French: Ce n’est pas grave.

Literally: “It’s not serious.”

A French person often means: “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.”

What I hear: “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

Recently, I have come to learn that communication isn't just about speaking the same language. Sometimes two people understand every word the other person says, yet somehow leave feeling completely misunderstood, even after hours and hours of talking. One thinks they're minimizing the event; the other feels like they're minimizing the emotion. One thinks they're offering perspective; the other hears dismissal. The conflict isn't always in what was said. Sometimes it's in the translation.

I’ve come to learn that emotional translation is harder than linguistic translation.

Google Translate can tell you what a sentence means. It can’t tell you what someone was trying to say. Connotation x denotation.

I spent years learning how to communicate in five languages.

And still, somehow, in the middle of all those languages and communication forms, why am I so hard to understand?

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They push through rocky soil, cracks in the pavement, abandoned fields. Anywhere, really. Somehow, despite everything, they bloom anyway.

The past few weeks have felt a little like rocky soil.

I haven’t felt like myself.

Job applications. Studying. More studying. Learning new skills because maybe the next application will require them, and, apparently, a master’s degree no longer counts for much. Writing because I love it. Wondering whether I know enough to make the jump.

Most days, I spend more time preparing for the future than actually living in the present. Looking and trying to visualize what my future looks like, and if any of the current stress is worth it.

People love to talk about manifestation. Visualize the future. Act as though you already have it. Believe hard enough, and everything will work out.

I can’t do it.

Every time I try to picture my future, the image disappears before I can quite figure it out.

So this week I stopped trying. The last thing I wanted was to force the idea of a future that I wasn’t even sure I believed in.

This past week, I gave everyone plenty of reasons to leave me alone. I sounded exhausted. My voice sounded a little too quiet, and I was hanging up the phone quickly. My face looked like I was about to cry at any second. I sounded a little more pessimistic than I intended, maybe. I was clearly irritated, and to be quite honest, pretty rude.

My friends ignored every hint that I wanted to be alone.

They texted. They called. They checked in. They made me laugh after I was crying. And they made sure I felt supported.

Friends I hadn’t spoken to in months appeared on my WhatsApp, to my surprise.

They saw me wilting and watered me anyway.

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Maybe that’s another thing wildflowers and friendships have in common. Nobody plants them with a detailed blueprint.

They show up unexpectedly.

One day, they’re not there. Then suddenly they are growing between the cracks.

What surprised me most was that all of this happened while the person I usually lean on the most wasn’t very available. My best friend — the person who is often my first call — had his own things going on. I missed him, of course.

But his short absence created space for another realization.

An entire garden existed around me. I just hadn’t noticed it.

It was the perfect timing. Like someone up there knew that I shouldn’t be alone. And I haven’t been. Ever.

For years, I romanticized leaving. I wrote about disappearing into the world plenty of times. Buying one-way tickets. Depending on nobody. Carrying only what fits in a backpack and vanishing from everyone.

I still love that idea.

But this week reminded me that dandelions are wildflowers.

People call them weeds.

Still, children pick them by the handful. People make wishes on them. Some people even tattoo them onto their skin (me!!) because they represent hope and new beginnings.

Funny how that works.

And lately, in a season filled with uncertainty, friendship has felt a lot like a dandelion.

Growing exactly where I needed it.

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If you’ve never heard of it, it’s exactly what it sounds like: letters from strangers. Confessions, regrets, grief, love, fears. Tiny pieces of people’s lives left behind for someone else to find.

I went with a friend who was visiting from Los Angeles because I knew two things. First, that he would appreciate it. Second, that he would not judge me if I cried.

I knew I would cry.

It had taken me over two years of living in New York to build up the courage to go. Looking back, I think I know why.

For the first time, maybe ever, I felt understood.

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I had felt understood by books before. There are characters I have loved because they thought the way I thought or felt the way I felt. I even have two tattoos that I got because of said characters. But fictional people can only take you so far. They are carefully crafted to tell a story. They are not real.

These letters were. Reading them, I found myself wondering: are we all just hiding from each other?

Are we all walking around carrying thoughts and fears and griefs that we are too afraid to say out loud?

Because for most of my life, I have felt like no one understands me. But somehow, in the project, I read letters from strangers that put my thoughts into words and, even anonymously, decided to share them with the world. If I could so easily find people at an exhibition in New York who felt the same feelings, how could I not find them in real life?

I know that I am sensitive. I know I get upset quickly. I know I feel things deeply.

I also know that these traits are usually described as flaws.

But I have never understood why.

Why is it wrong to feel deeply?

Why is it too much to be anxious when something scares you, sad when something hurts you, or overwhelmed when life becomes overwhelming?

I am not trying to convince anyone that my version of events is the right one. I am only trying to show how they looked from where I stood and how they made me feel.

The things that touch our hearts are rarely logical. They are simply ours.

When I tell someone I am anxious, I do not necessarily need them to tell me there is nothing to worry about. When I tell someone that something hurt me, I am not asking them to decide whether it should have.

I think that is what frustrates me the most.

People often listen, but they do not hear.

They nod. They agree. They make sympathetic noises. But sometimes I can see it in their faces and mostly through their eyes that they have already decided that I am overreacting, that I am being dramatic, that I will get over it.

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The conversation becomes less about understanding what I am saying and more about convincing me that I should not feel it in the first place.

I think this is what has always frightened me most about love and relationships. I think I have always had a vision that romantic relationships are supposed to be the place where someone knows you better than anyone else, where you can let down your guard and trust that the person across from you will understand. And I think he does know me better than anyone. But there’s still this gap in understanding that I am unsure how to mend.

I have learned that closeness and understanding are not the same thing. Someone can know your favorite color, how you take your coffee, your favorite books, and still look at you with complete confusion when you try to explain what is happening inside your own head. Or worse, annoyance.

There is a particular loneliness in being vulnerable with someone you love, only to realize they are hearing the words but missing the meaning.

I am not asking anyone to agree with me. I am not even asking them to think I am right. I just want someone to believe that what I am feeling is real.

Maybe that is why I have always loved the Mad Hatter’s line in Alice in Wonderland, which I have recently seen all over social media.

I think about that quote a lot whenever I see myself shying away from my feelings to keep my relationships with the people around me comfortable. If there’s no depth, there are no misunderstandings.

Standing in the Stranger Project, surrounded by the words of people I would never meet, I realized that maybe none of us is as alone as we think.

Maybe understanding was never supposed to mean finding someone who feels exactly what we feel. Maybe it is simply finding someone who lets us feel it without rolling their eyes.

Someone who does not try to solve us but solves with us.

Someone who sits with us for a moment and says, “I may not know what that feels like, but I believe that it feels that way to you.”

I walked out of that exhibit thinking about all those strangers who had trusted someone enough to leave a piece of themselves behind.

And I wondered if we are all undersharing our lives. If we are all carrying around the same thoughts, waiting for permission to say them out loud, out of fear that the other person would not understand.

I still do not think anyone can truly understand another person completely, as we all experience the world differently.

But I think there is something beautiful in trying.

And maybe that is enough.

Maybe being understood does not mean finding someone who sees the world exactly as we do.

Maybe it means finding someone who is willing to stand where we stood for a moment and look.

I just ask, please don’t ever call me dramatic again.

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The Strangers Project

A living archive of the Human Experience ft. 100,000+ Handwritten Stories

By Brandon Doman

Not in the sense that it was bad writing, but in the sense that it was heavy and pessimistic. Complicated in a way that made love feel more like something to solve than something to feel.

It’s been a little over a month since I last wrote about it, and if I’m being honest, every time I have, it’s come with some kind of warning attached. That loving someone means giving something up. That if it doesn’t work out, I’ll carry it forever, because that’s just how I am.. That I don’t really trust people the way I think I should. That jealousy shows up even when I hate that it does.

All of that is still true.

I still overthink. I still get scared. I still don’t fully understand why trusting feels so hard for me.

But putting all of that aside — the fear, the overthinking, the what-if’s, what I’d have to give up, what’s going to happen with my life — I realized I’ve never really talked about what love actually feels like when you’re inside it and feeling it deeply.

Not the fear of losing it. Not the analysis of it. Just the feeling itself.

And it’s… strange. New.

Because it’s scary, obviously. It feels like opening something in you that you don’t fully know how to protect. You’re giving someone access to parts of you that could be hurt, and you don’t know what they’re going to do with that. You don’t know what’s going to happen.

But at the same time, it feels safe.

Not safe in the sense that nothing bad could ever happen, but safe in the sense that you trust the person enough to believe they wouldn’t hurt you on purpose. It feels like someone is looking out for you and your feelings. Like you’re being considered.

And that’s new for me.

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I don’t feel like I have to hold myself back. I usually do. I filter things, I measure what I say, I keep parts of myself contained. But here, I don’t.

I can say whatever comes to mind, and it’s fine.

If I say something dumb, he laughs. If he says something dumb, he laughs. Nothing feels heavy, even when it kind of is. There’s no anger sitting underneath things. It’s mostly just… understanding.

I can say pretty much anything, and it’s okay.

There’s nothing I can say that’s going to push him away. There’s nothing I can say that’s going to change how he sees me, because he already saw everything.

And if I do hold back, he notices. And he tries to get it out of me.

I feel safe physically, too, which is something I didn’t realize mattered this much until I felt it. My limits are respected without me having to fight for that. There’s no tension around it.

It’s just… care.

I feel loved. I feel seen.

The things that matter to me matter to him too, even when they’re objectively small or kind of stupid. Like this Substack. It’s not monetized, it’s not strategic, it’s just something I do because I like to do. And somehow, it matters to him too. He reads my drafts without me even asking. He encourages me, and he’s my number one fan (according to Substack analytics and my own feelings).

That shouldn’t feel like a big deal, but it does.

He listens. Actually listens.

He’s not naturally the most romantic person in the obvious ways, but when I tell him something would mean something to me, I don’t feel like I’m begging. I just say it, and he takes it seriously. He goes out of his way to make it happen.

And that’s more meaningful than anything performative.

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He’s careful with my feelings. Not in a suffocating way, but in a way that makes it clear he doesn’t want to hurt me. And I didn’t realize how much I needed that until I had it, because in the past, it felt like that was always missing. Like people would just do whatever they wanted and deal with the impact later.

This feels different.

I feel considered. Before and after,

And I hope he feels the same about me, even though I know I’ve hurt him before. And even if I don’t fully know how I could’ve acted differently, I still care. I’m still careful with him. Like we both care enough to be careful.

And then there’s this other layer of it that I don’t really know how to explain.

He’s just… a good person.

Not just to me, but to everyone. And there’s something about knowing that, and then realizing that someone like that chose you, that makes you pause a little.

Like, why me? Out of everyone, why me?

And when the answer is simply “because it’s you,” it makes you feel… special. You’re being chosen for exactly who you are. We chose each other, and we love it.

He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s attractive, and he’s my best friend. I trusted him even before any of this, and I trust him now in a different way.

So yeah, love is still scary.

You never really know what’s going to happen. You don’t know how it might end or how much it could hurt.

There are still practical things that don’t make sense. Distance. Careers. The fact that our lives might not align in the way we want them to.

All of that is real.

But right now, it just feels really, really good.

And for once, I’m letting that be enough.

It is one of the most vulnerable feelings I can admit to.

Jealousy did not come naturally to me.

When I entered my first relationship, I wasn’t jealous at all. Not even a little. I trusted blindly. I loved openly. I assumed that if someone chose me, that was enough. The boy I was with at the time was almost bothered by how little jealousy I showed. I thought that meant I was evolved. Secure. Mature.

As I grew older, I started to learn about jealousy and about its supposed importance.

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I learned that the girl best friend wasn’t always “just a friend.” That the girl I didn’t need to worry about was often the one I should have worried about most. That when someone looked at me and asked, “Do you trust me?” the honest answer, sometimes, should have been no.

Jealousy became a kind of sixth sense. An instinct. It alerted me to things I might have otherwise ignored. It protected me. It uncovered truths that would have shattered me even more if I had discovered them later. Truths that shouldn’t even have been there in the first place.

But the same instinct that protected me also began to live inside me permanently.

It is exhausting to carry a feeling that both saves you and slowly destroys you. Because when does it end? When do you know it is intuition, and when is it fear? When do you trust your partner, and when do you trust the ache in your chest?

Jealousy is a horrible feeling. It makes me want to rip my own heart out just so it will stop aching. It makes me question whether any good in a situation is worth the cost of the anxiety and the lack of sleep that comes with it. It makes me want to pack my bags, move cities, start over, and outrun the feeling entirely.

Sometimes the cause of jealousy isn’t loud or dramatic. Sometimes it looks like being told the conversations are “dry” when they don’t feel dry to you at all. Sometimes it looks like being promised that something will be addressed, and then watching nothing change. Sometimes it looks like waiting while someone else’s feelings are handled gently, and yours are left exposed. And you sit there wondering how you became the unreasonable one for wanting to feel secure.

I think part of my hurt wasn’t the situation itself, but the waiting. Waiting to be reassured. Waiting for something to change. Waiting to feel like my discomfort mattered urgently, not eventually. When reassurance comes too late, it doesn’t calm you. It just reminds you how long you were alone in it. It makes you wonder if it even came at all. It’s hard to feel protected when protection arrives late.

And by the time things shifted, something in me already had.

The cruelest part of jealousy is that it is born from love, but also from betrayal. Or at least the fear of it. And once you’ve experienced both, it becomes hard to separate instinct from imagination.

There is guilt in it, too.

Not because nothing is happening, but because some of it feels deliberate.

You may believe he didn’t mean to hurt you. You may even see him trying. But this isn’t always about him. Sometimes it is about the other person — about behavior that doesn’t feel accidental.

About loyalty being demanded in ways that predate you. From someone who insists on being prioritized. Who flirts openly. Who disappears when they are taken and returns when they are not.

About boundaries being tested again and again, just to see if they will hold. About finding loopholes so promises are not broken.

At some point, it stops feeling like imagination. It feels intentional.

And that is where the guilt begins. Because you don’t want to punish someone who didn’t intend harm, yet you don’t want to ignore something that feels deliberate. And God, it feels so deliberate. So you sit with the discomfort, unsure of who you are allowed to blame. Unsure if you are even allowed to blame anyone at all.

I should probably just let things be.

“You will never have to force something that is truly meant for you,” or whatever the quote I saw on Pinterest says.

I even talked to a priest about it. He told me to let things unfold naturally — that if this relationship is from God, I won’t have to worry. Nothing bad will happen. And if it does, then it isn’t from God, and I will have my answer.

But it is so hard when it occupies my mind more than I would like to admit.

I think about it all the time.

I try to cope. With intense cardio that forces my heart to slow down. Studying subjects that pique my interest and capture my attention for hours. Booking trips to places I’ve never been, hoping the excitement will drown out the noise.

I don’t know what else to do.

I don’t want to accidentally push something good away because I cannot fully trust a third person. Someone I wish would disappear but never will.

I am trying to surrender. But surrender feels a lot like standing still while your mind is running in circles.

This post was written ages ago, and these problems don’t really exist anymore. I just thought I’d share in case someone relates to it.

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Specifically, Jo March in the 2019 adaptation of Little Women.

I first watched the movie when it came out. I was 18, about to move to the United States for college, and very much bright-eyed about the possibility of all my dreams coming true.

At the time, my dream was to write novels. I was obsessed with writing. I would spend hours in my journals crafting the perfect narrative. My dream was to write a book and be a famous author.

And, just like Jo, the romance side of my life was a disaster. But I didn’t really care back then.

I didn’t get my first boyfriend until I was 20, in college (and that relationship lasted three weeks). But that’s a whole different story.

So when I watched Little Women at 18, I related strongly to Jo’s obsession with becoming a great novelist while leaving the romantic parts of life aside. My version of that obsession was finishing a book that I eventually published and starting university.

But even back then, the scene that stayed with me most was the one where Jo tells Marmee that she feels lonely.

When I first watched the movie, I thought that scene meant something simple: Jo had chosen passion over love. She moved to New York. She was selling her stories. Things were working.

Recently, though, I read a Substack post that talked about the nuance of that speech.

Inner Monologue

Why "I'm So Lonely" Is the Most Important Line in Little Women

Greta Gerwig’s Little Women gifted us one of the most heart-wrenching monologues in recent cinematic history. Jo March, standing in the dimly lit room, spills out her frustrations, desires, and insecurities in a raw, unfiltered plea: “Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, a…

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a year ago · 9923 likes · 158 comments · Mashka

“But even as she stands firm, she acknowledges the personal cost of her decision. The loneliness she expresses is not a fleeting sadness; it is a fundamental part of her reality as a woman who refuses to fit neatly into societal expectations.”

That interpretation resonated deeply with me because it’s exactly how I saw her: someone deeply oriented toward a dream and willing to sacrifice certain parts of life to pursue it.

“Jo March is a writer, a sister, a dreamer, a rebel. And she is lonely. That is not a contradiction - it is the most human thing of all.”

This idea — that loneliness might simply be a consequence of choosing the life you want — is what made me relate to Jo so much.

And when I first watched the movie, I thought Jo was choosing passion over love.

When Jo turns down Laurie’s proposal, she tells him she loves him, but not in the way he wants. She tells him they would only make each other miserable. She wants something different from life. That moment felt almost romantic in its own way: a woman choosing her dream without hesitation. I wanted that for me as well.

But now I’m starting to think the choice might not be that simple.

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Recently, at 2:17 a.m., it started to feel like I might be facing a similar kind of math.

Love.

Passion.

Some of the people in my life react to that idea as if it’s absurd. As if I’m inventing a choice of only two options that don’t actually exist.

But inside my head, it feels mathematical.

I’m 25. And the math looks something like this: I only have a few years to figure out what direction my life is going before it becomes too late. A few years before having kids becomes medically riskier and harder. A few years where certain paths still feel open, where I still have the freedom and energy to move between countries. A few years while I can still travel and explore the world in ways that might not be possible later.

People say that framing life like that is limiting. That passion can exist wherever love is. Or that love can exist wherever passion is. That the future might contain options I simply can’t see yet.

Maybe.

But when I try to map things out honestly, the list still feels simple.

Love and passion.

If I had to rank them right now, I think I would put love first. Which is exactly why the whole thing makes me a little crazy. I would never have made that choice just last year.

Because if I choose love over passion, I’m terrified of missing opportunities that only exist now — the kind of travel and work opportunities that are easier at 25 than they might ever be again. And how would I even know if love will stay?

But if I choose passion over love, I’m terrified of sitting somewhere beautiful in the world and wondering why my ambitions feel so empty at night. Are they even worth it if I am alone?

What makes this harder is that my dream has changed, but it hasn’t disappeared.

At 18, I thought my dream was to become a novelist. I thought writing meant sitting alone with my thoughts and turning them into something new.

Somewhere along the way, that dream changed shape.

I still want to write (I think I always will). But I no longer want to write only from imagination. I want to write about places I’ve been, people I’ve met, conversations I’ve had, and experiences that actually happened.

I don’t want to spend my life inventing worlds from my desk. I want to go out into the world first and then write about it.

My dream now is not just to make things up. It’s to live enough. Live a lot. And then have something meaningful to say.

So now I’m here. Studying, applying for jobs, looking for flexible opportunities, trying to make at least one version of the future work.

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The truth is, I do want movement. I want to change countries and live in multiple places. I want the kind of life that lets me go, see, and experience. Meeting people from all over the world, hearing stories from strangers, and experiencing new cultures might be my favorite thing in the world.

I look up to the people who make remote jobs work so they can explore while also building a career in a field they like. People who balance work and exploration. Those who are able to go on many adventures now and still prepare for the future.

But that kind of movement is also exactly the kind of life that makes stability very difficult — and makes being with the person I want much, much harder.

Jo’s situation was different. When Laurie asked her to marry him, she wasn’t in love with him, which makes my version of this dilemma feel much less simple.

Laurie isn’t actually the source of Jo’s loneliness. When she wondered if he would still marry her, it wasn’t because she was in love with him. She was lonely even before that. The loneliness she talks about in the movie comes from something deeper, from wanting a life that doesn’t quite fit the shape the world expects from her.

Which means something about her story is even more complicated than I first thought.

Jo is lonely even though she never had to sacrifice a real love.

And here I am, afraid I might.

When I first watched Little Women, I thought Jo March chose passion over love. Now I think she simply chose the life that felt most like her own and accepted that loneliness might come with it.

More than anything, I want to be in love.

And more than anything, I want a life that feels like mine.

Maybe the part of myself I haven’t met yet is the woman who realizes those two things were never enemies in the first place.

But there’s one person she won’t forget. Her boyfriend from when she was around 17 to 19 years old. His name was Reis. He was a doctor. He used to bring her flowers every week.

And… he’s not my grandfather.

Life happened. She and Reis couldn’t be together, and years later, she married my grandfather.

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Similarly, when she was also around 17, my aunt had a boyfriend. Growing up, she and my dad took piano lessons. My dad tells me about a time when he would walk from their house to their piano teacher’s house with a briefcase full of sheet music and get upset seeing all his friends playing soccer outside while he couldn’t join them.

The piano lessons were more appreciated by my aunt, who bonded with her boyfriend over music. He also played the piano and was great at it.

He died in a car crash.

After that, the piano in their house went into retirement. My aunt stopped playing. And so did my dad, because just the sight of the piano would upset her and remind her of her lost love.

My aunt still remembers him clearly, over 50 years later.

Both of these stories scare me, because they make me wonder how long love can stay inside someone.

I like to say I can only fall for someone once every three or four years, because that’s the amount of time it takes me to get over someone. Before my current boyfriend, I used to think I was in love with the people I dated. And maybe I was, to a lesser degree.

Now, I’m scared to imagine how long it would take me to get over this relationship if it ever ended.

If it took me four years to get over someone I wasn’t actually in love with, how long would it take to get over someone I have very strong feelings for and trust more than anyone else?

If reminiscing is in my genetics, I guess I’m fucked.

Looks like I might be capable of not moving on for over 80 years, judging by my grandma, who still isn’t over the boyfriend she had as a teenager.

Sometimes I wonder: if they had stayed together, would they still be together today?

I also wonder how much of it is actually love she had for him, and how much of it might be frustration with her relationship with my grandfather, which caused her to remember that teenage relationship in a much more positive light than it actually was.

In any case, these stories make me scared.

Right now, I am in a loving relationship with my best friend. And let me tell you, being in love with your greatest friend is one of the best things you can do.

Look at what Violet Bridgerton said:

And I totally agree. While I am not talking about marriage, just dating your best friend is the best feeling in the world.

We were friends for about 6.5 years before dating. Best friends for about 4 years. And boyFRIEND and girlFRIEND, just shy of three months. And those have been some of the best months and years I could have possibly asked for.

It feels good to be with someone where you don’t have to wonder what the limit is.

What is the limit of things I can tell him that will make him go away?
What is the limit of my clinginess that he can take?
What is the limit of me being too much?

There’s no limit.

I can give my all.

For about four years, he’s been my greatest confidant. He knows (almost) all of my secrets. He’s been one of the first people I call with news, good or bad. He’s someone I trust with everything. I truly care about him, and I know he truly cares about me, too.

It’s the best feeling in the world.

I am a big fan of Boys of Tommen, and my favorite couple of the series is Aoife and Joey. I think you can understand why. Best friends for six years. Great love story right after.

“He’s my best friend… Forget the romantic side of things and all of the bullshit. He’s my closest friend on the entire planet…” — Aoife Molloy in Redeeming 6.

Their banter even reminds me of us.

Unfortunately, I am someone who tends to think about worst-case scenarios, and sometimes I catch myself wondering: what would happen if life happened, just like it happened to my grandmother? What would happen if, for some reason or another, we couldn’t be together?

Would he move on?
Would I be able to move on?

Am I doomed, like my family, to never really move on?

It honestly seems entirely possible, especially considering how long he’s been in my life and how important he’s become.

I can only hope this never happens. For now, the only thing I can do is enjoy what we have. And what we have is a truly great thing.

I feel very lucky to have found love in my best friend. It’s a special thing to be with someone who is always there for you, and I can only hope that I am being for him what he is for me. We have such a great time together, and I have so much fun with him, even when we’re doing absolutely nothing, just sitting on the couch eating pizza and talking. And honestly, those moments are some of my favorite ones.

But if, for some reason, we couldn’t be together anymore, for reasons beyond my control, I hope we can stay in each other’s lives.

No matter what.

Maybe I’m the Girl Who Can’t Be Moved.

As a romantic, love stories have always been my favorite. I read anything that made me giggle and blush, made me believe that true love did exist. It is a hard feeling to explain. Romance books, especially friends-to-lovers, my favorite trope, made me giddy and hopeful. Like one day I would have something like this.

Until one day, I couldn’t bring myself to open a romance book without feeling anger.

I like to say that my parents “gaslit” me into loving books. They were never the type of parents to give “just because” gifts. The only time they never said no to an out-of-season gift (birthday or Christmas) was when I asked for a book. Getting them made me happy and kept me asking for more.

I read all the basics: Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Selection, plus a few Brazilian basics like Fazendo Meu Filme — everything a preteen girl was supposed to read, I devoured.

I didn’t just read. I wrote. Constantly.

I filled journals after journals, mainly with love stories that I created in my head.

As I’ve gotten older, the kinds of books I read have changed. I’d say I read three main types.

The first kind: books that awaken my wanderlust. Travel-heavy, life-story, searching-for-meaning books. Think Hippie by Paulo Coelho. Books about people finding their way.

The second type: fiction. I can’t really define what genre this is, but think not fluffy. Painful. Messy. The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith is a perfect example. I loved that book so much that I got a dandelion tattooed on my shoulder because of it. It’s not even purely romance, but it has an emotional intensity I’m drawn to. The kind of story that wrecks you a little.

And then there’s the third type — or maybe the former type.

Cheesy romances.

I used to eat them up. Completely. I’ve always been deeply romantic. Love letters and big feelings have always been me. So, of course, my bookshelf reflected that. I consumed the kind of stories where everything works out, where love is overwhelming and “absolute cinema.” I loved The Heartbreakers by Ali Novak. I read it first on Wattpad and later the published version.

But then, as time passed, things changed.

And I went through bad relationship after bad relationship after bad relationship.

At first, I was just like Lara Jean in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.

But suddenly reality became stronger than my desire to think about love in my head. Suddenly, I couldn’t read the cheesy romance books I enjoyed so much. So I just stopped.

Instead of feeling comforted, I felt irritated. Almost angry. While reading, I would think, “Why are you lying to me?” This doesn’t happen like this. People don’t act like this. Love doesn’t resolve itself in 300 pages like this. It started to feel fake and wasted time.

I genuinely thought that I hated this type of book. For a while, I would only read travel-heavy books and some that would complement my international relations studies.

That is, until about two years later, I was giggling while reading Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter, a book that just the year before I stopped reading because it had “irritated me so much,” as I told one of my friends. But that day, I felt the desire to give it a second chance. And I loved it.

Same book, different heart, I guess.

And, not coincidentally, it was after I found someone new.

He wasn’t really “new,” as we’ve been friends for about six years and really close friends for four. But the romantic feeling is definitely new. Somehow, from reading romances, I ended up creating my own slow-burn friends-to-lovers romantic situation. Suddenly, I wasn’t the only one pouring love into the relationship, but I was receiving it back too. And suddenly the things I used to read about, that I thought were just lies and inexistent became part of my daily life.

Now I am digging back into the “cheesy romantic” books that I loved so much – and gave me a lot of hope.

Don’t get me wrong, I am still reading all the other genres, and I actually discovered, in the meantime, that I love historical books. But it is good to know that if I ever need to feel hopeful about love, I can reach for a romance novel again. And this time, believe it.

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