I liked the unlikely heroes: Percy Jackson, the kid who kept getting expelled from school before discovering he was a demigod. Harry Potter, the unwanted orphan who learned he was a wizard. Their stories always began with confusion. Their gifts were hidden from them. The first chapters were never about success but about misunderstanding who they were.

I found those stories comforting because I couldn’t identify any obvious talent in myself.

I had tried everything. Piano and guitar. Soccer and volleyball. Art classes, theater classes, dance classes. I learned enough Spanish to hold a conversation and enough German to embarrass myself in one. Most of these activities ended the same way: I enjoyed them, but I wasn’t particularly good at them.

Writing felt different.

In my essay, I described writing as my superpower. It was the first thing I had found that felt natural. While other people seemed to possess obvious talents, writing was quieter in the sense that only I could read it. It was simply the thing I kept returning to. I imagined that college would help me develop it further. Like the mentors in the fantasy novels I loved, professors and editors would guide me toward the person I was meant to become.

Looking back, what surprises me is not how young I sound. It is how much faith I had.

I believed that effort led somewhere.

Not immediately, of course. The heroes always suffered first. But eventually. Eventually, the story revealed why the struggle had been necessary.

I carried that belief with me for years.

I studied constantly. I worked while I was in school. I took internships. I accepted jobs because they would be “good for my professional development,” including jobs I hated. I delayed fun, postponed rest, and convinced myself that every sacrifice would make sense later. The future was always just around the corner, waiting to justify the present.

Sometimes I wonder whether that future ever arrived.

I don’t think it did. At all.

Today I am unemployed and living with my parents again.

When people hear that, they often assume the painful part is the unemployment itself. It isn’t. Plenty of people lose jobs. Plenty of people struggle professionally.

The painful part is the confusion.

I did the things.

I followed the instructions.

I got the degree. I built the skills. I won awards. I worked in newsrooms that would have seemed impossibly prestigious to the seventeen-year-old who wrote that essay.

And yet I find myself staring at the same question she was asking.

What now?

When I was younger, I thought the part I related to was the beginning.

The feeling of being ordinary. The feeling of not knowing what I was good at. The feeling that everyone else seemed to have discovered something about themselves that I hadn’t.

But there was another part of those stories that fascinated me.

I always looked at the heroes in awe when things fell apart. When they lost people. When they were exhausted. When they were scared. When every plan failed, and they had every reason to quit, they somehow kept going anyway.

Back then, I read those scenes the way you read about magic powers or dragons. They felt exciting, dramatic, and larger than life.

Now they feel almost impossible.

The older I get, the less impressed I am by the heroes’ victories and the more impressed I am by their endurance. I don’t care that they defeated the villain. I care that they woke up the next morning and kept moving after everything that happened to them.

When I was seventeen, I thought my superpower was writing.

At twenty-five, I’m not so sure.

What I know is that I look at those heroes differently now. I no longer see myself in the moments when they discover they are special. I look at them in the moments when they are exhausted, frightened, grieving, and completely lost, and I think: I could never do that.

And yet somehow they do.

They keep going.

Maybe that was the real superpower all along.

iykyk

One day, I was talking to my therapist, and she was asking about my childhood. She was asking about you, really.

I wish I could tell you that this habit of disappearing into your imagination whenever things get stressful goes away. It doesn't. If anything, I think it's gotten stronger, especially now that you're older and there are more stressful things going on. I wish I could tell you that you handle stress better now. I don't think you do. You're one second away from running away to be an Elf in Finland.

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Remember when we were six, and our parents took us (me?) to a therapist because I was crying too much for a six-year-old, and they didn’t know what was causing it or how to make it stop? And how, after many, many sessions with her asking about my life and school and stuff, and after switching therapists a couple of times, everybody came to the conclusion that they just didn’t know? Yeah, that still happens. You’re still extremely sensitive to everything, and you still cry a lot for just about anything and everything. Don’t ask me why. I wish I knew.

Your poor boyfriend has seen you cry over some truly ridiculous things. He doesn’t seem to mind that much. Oh yes, we have a boyfriend. Congrats on that!

At least being sensitive makes you appreciate the places you’ve been more. You cried seeing turtles in Indonesia. You also cried seeing turtles in Hawaii. You cried seeing turtles in Colombia. You cry because of turtles a lot.

Maybe that’s why you use paper straws.

When you were in Colombia, you bought two bracelets from a street vendor. One had blue dots that symbolized the bioluminescent plankton (or so the vendor said). You got it because you were just about to achieve that dream of seeing them for the first time. The second bracelet was white and lilac dots, with a turtle. The vendor said turtles only swim forward, not backward, so they symbolize you swimming toward the things you love.

“Las tortugas son como el amor, lento pero seguro.”

“Turtles are like love, slow but sure.”

Congrats, you cried because of a turtle bracelet!!

Also, I learned later that turtles CAN swim backwards.

Oh, and when you were at Penn State, you went grocery shopping with your own eco-reusable-earth-friendly shopping bag, and the cashier looked at it and said, “Ah, saving the turtles and shit.”

Yeah, I like turtles. And shit.

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@renatadaouStill not over this 🐢🌊. @Life of Zai great camera work.

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You wouldn’t believe what our life has turned into. I can’t even tell you if it’s in a good or bad way. We’ve done a million things that you probably never thought you’d do. But that’s precisely the point. You’ve done many, many things you never thought you’d do, but you’ve done a few of the things you thought you would. And man, it wasn’t for lack of trying. It’s always as if you have a target in front of you and your aim is so bad that the arrow goes anywhere except where you aimed.

There’s one thing that you have learned in life, but you kind of wish you hadn’t: how to be alone. Maybe that was also part of your upbringing because, as a child, you spent too much time alone without someone to talk to. But you also learned very young to be careful with what you say because you never quite knew what would come back to haunt you later. Looking back, I think that's part of why you've always had a hard time trusting that people will stay.

My therapist said I should be nicer to myself and be the person I wish I had when I was twelve. When I was you, I guess. When you kept hiding in the bathroom and reading books for hours. I know you do that.

She said that, just like then, maybe I don’t need someone to help me solve my problems.

Not always. When we lend a shoulder for a friend to cry on, they don’t necessarily want us to offer solutions to the problem. Sometimes that is all they want: a shoulder to cry on. Maybe I just need to be. Be there. Not solve anything for myself. Not think about how I can move on and keep going. Not think about how I can stop the feelings. Just be there.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to learn all along. Not how to stop feeling so much or how to become tougher. Just how to keep moving forward.

Like the turtle bracelet said.

Slow but sure.

Even if turtles can swim backwards, too.

More on Colombia:

I want to see every country. Taste everything. Feel everything.

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But it’s never just geography in itself.

I want to speak every language because every language is a different way of being alive. I studied International Relations and Journalism, and I know the exact moment I understood why: sitting in an international relations lecture, watching how history writes itself through ordinary people and how culture is never just culture, I felt lit up from the inside. That class didn’t feel like studying. It felt like the first time someone described the world the way I’d always sensed it. I wanted to study because I was genuinely interested.

That feeling is the thing I’m chasing. Everywhere.

In the Alchemist, Santiago is a shepherd boy who wants to travel the world. He has a recurring dream about treasure near the Egyptian pyramids, and against all practical wisdom, he follows it. He sells his sheep. He crosses the ocean. He gets robbed. He starts over.

And he keeps going because, as Coelho frames it, desire itself is sacred:

That sounds like a motivational poster until you read it in context. What Coelho actually means is that deep desire is not random. In the book, longing is almost treated like a sign that something in the world is pulling you toward the life that is meant for you. They are the universe’s way of asking something of you specifically. Your desire is not a distraction from your path. It is the path.

So when I feel that pull toward a new country, a new language, a new way of seeing the world, I’m trying to learn to treat it as information rather than an inconvenience.

Here’s what I know about myself: nothing I do stays contained the same way it started.

The gym becomes 100 classes in three months. One song becomes the entire discography. Leaving a country becomes something I carry in my chest long after I’ve come back home, and a 10,000-word semi-fiction story. I fall into things completely or not at all.

For a long time, this felt like a flaw. Too much. Too intense. Needs to calm down.

But The Alchemist has a different word for it. It’s the Personal Legend, the thing you were put here to do, the life that is specifically and irreducibly yours. And the book’s actual tragedy isn’t the people who chase theirs recklessly.

It’s the people who don’t chase it at all.

There’s the crystal merchant Santiago works for. He’s a good man, a kind man, who has dreamed his whole life of making a pilgrimage to Mecca. He knows it would make his life meaningful. He has the money. He has no real reason not to go other than that he's afraid the dream's realization would leave him with nothing to live for.

He never goes.

I’ve thought about that line more than almost anything else I’ve read. The dream becomes the reason to keep dreaming. To actually reach it would require becoming someone different. And that’s terrifying enough to keep a person standing still for a lifetime.

I refuse to be the crystal merchant.

I sometimes sit across from someone my age, talking about getting married and having kids in five years, and I smile because I genuinely mean it. I am happy for them. But something in me tightens anyway. Not judgment, but something more like grief.

It feels like choosing one life means losing all the others.

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The version of me with a carry-on and no return ticket. Meeting strangers in a city whose name I’m still learning to pronounce. Hostel kitchens at 1 a.m. The particular freedom that doesn’t ask what comes next, it just is.

Coelho addresses this directly. Santiago falls in love in the middle of the desert, at an oasis called Al-Fayoum. Her name is Fatima. The love is real, and he wants to stay.

But the book says something that made me think:

More directly: true love, real love, does not ask you to abandon your Personal Legend. If loving someone requires abandoning the person you are becoming, The Alchemist would probably argue that something has gone wrong.

That doesn’t mean to never root. It means don’t choose a life that makes you disappear inside it.

The honest fear underneath all of this is simpler than it sounds: what if I want too much?

What if the hunger itself is the problem, this inability to want just one thing, just one life, just one version of the world?

The Alchemist would say: No. That’s not the problem. The problem is only ever one thing:

Not the size of the dream. Not the impracticality of it. Not the number of countries or languages or lives you want to taste. The only real obstacle is the moment you decide that wanting is too dangerous to follow.

I studied how the world works through its borders, its histories, its languages, its conflicts, the way power moves, and how meaning gets made. And somewhere in all of that, I understood the world is not an abstraction. It is made of specific places, specific people, specific moments that feel like being cracked open.

I want all of them.

The book says the universe is alive, and it speaks through desire, through restlessness, through the feeling that there is more and you are supposed to go find it.

I’m trying to listen.

God forbid a girl wants to go everywhere and be everything.

The Alchemist would say: That’s not the problem.

The problem would only be if she stopped wanting it.

I planned the entire trip the week before I boarded the plane. Deliberately, I made it hard for anyone to join with bad dates and last-minute everything. I was in one of the most stressful periods of my life, and I felt deeply lonely. And yet, the last thing I wanted was to be around people. I wanted to go somewhere far away, by myself, and do exactly what I wanted without having to accommodate anyone else.

I went to Maui and O’ahu, and it ended up being one of the top three trips of my life. I met so many people. Most of the days, I wasn’t actually alone. I explored, I talked, I shared moments with strangers who didn’t feel like strangers for very long.

And still, something about that trip clarified a feeling I hadn’t been able to name before.

It was something that shows up even when I have people around me. It can happen when I am laughing with them, feel safe with them, and genuinely enjoy being there. And yet, something doesn’t fully land. I am surrounded, and I am lonely, and the two things sit side by side without canceling each other out.

This is the harder kind to explain because it doesn’t have an obvious cause. No one has left. No one has been cruel. The people in my life care about my well-being. They check in. They show up. And still, there is a gap. Not in love exactly, but in something more specific. The feeling of being met.

I think that’s what Hawai’i made clearer. Even in a place where I was constantly meeting new people, constantly surrounded, the feeling could still exist. Which means it was never really about being alone.

@renatadaouHawai’i trip with the best people at the best hostels making the best memories 💖🌺 #hawaii #travel #solotravel

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The gap shows up in small moments that shouldn’t even matter. The way something affects me and seems to pass right by everyone else. Comments that sit wrong with me and don’t seem to register for them, how it could have possibly hurt me. People keeping relationships with others that make me uncomfortable and acting like it’s nothing. The way I share my life in detail and don’t feel that same level of openness back. The nonchalance. The imbalance between how much I open up and how much I feel let into other people’s worlds.

None of these things is huge on its own. But together, they accumulate. And when they do, it doesn’t feel small. It feels physical. I feel genuinely sick to my stomach, like something is actually wrong. And that old instinct comes back. The one that made me book that trip in the first place. The urge to disappear a little. To pull away. I’ve always had a little itch to go away, and this only intensifies it.

There is a difference between people caring about me and people understanding how to care for me.

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That distinction has been slowly crystallizing. I am not asking for more love. I am asking for a different quality of attention. I want someone who understands why something affects me without needing a full explanation, or at least someone who takes it seriously because I do. Someone who is with me, not just around me.

And when that doesn’t exist, a question starts to surface: do I actually have someone here, or am I just surrounded?

Then it gets complicated. Because the loneliness starts pulling me toward a version of life I don’t actually want. I picture myself a few years from now, more removed, with fewer people in my life. And that thought makes me miserable. But underneath the misery, I feel almost at peace. Because at least then, I wouldn’t feel constantly disappointed.

And somewhere inside all of this, there is a harder question I have to ask honestly: am I doing the same thing to them?

Almost certainly, yes. There are things that matter deeply to the people I love that don’t register for me the way they wish they would. Moments where I was the one being nonchalant. I am not exempt from the very thing I’m grieving.

Love and loneliness are not opposites. They can exist in the same space.

That’s something the trip taught me, even if I didn’t realize it at the time. Most of my trip was shared. I met people at the hostel, and we did almost everything together. We explored, shared rides, played games, and some of them I still talk to today.

But watching the sunrise over Haleakalā National Park was different. That was one of the very few things I did alone.

Waking up at 3 a.m., the intense cold, the exhaustion, and then the view. The view above the clouds was breathtaking. It didn’t even feel real. Standing there, with no one next to me, the moment felt completely mine.

Not every relationship is meant to meet every part of me. Some people make me feel light, happy, at ease. Some meet me in depth, in emotional precision. Sometimes those are the same people. Often, they are not. And part of growing into myself is learning not to collapse those categories, not to expect a single person or a single group to hold everything I need.

I don’t have to choose between loving the people around me and wanting to be understood.

I might just need to stop looking for both in the same place.

One of them is the one that keeps track of everything that didn’t work. I’m bad at dancing, bad at singing, even though I really, really tried to be good at those. I don’t have an eye for drawing, and I’ve always been terrible at sports that involve a ball.

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Professionally, journalism has been giving me a weird feeling in a way that feels personal, even if I know it’s not supposed to be. I had to apply four times for the same internship to get it, and later, I didn’t get a full-time offer. Now, I’m back to the phase of applying again and not landing anywhere.

That version of me feels easy to explain. I try things, and they don’t stick. Simple

In the other version, things are less black and white. Grey.

I will try literally any food, even if they sound disgusting to me, just to see if I would like it. I’ll go camping even though I don’t really know how to set up a tent, travel somewhere new without overthinking it, and say yes to things at the last minute.

I’ve surfed, skied, surfed, wakeboarded, sandboarded, and I realized that even though I suck at sports with balls, I am pretty good at those with balance. All because I was willing to try. I’m the person people assume will say yes. The “down for anything” one.

Both of these are true, and for a long time, I didn’t know how they could exist in the same person.

Recently, I came across a TikTok that talked about how the people who end up being “interesting” are usually the ones who are okay with risk. The idea is that if you’re okay with trying new things and failing, you naturally end up with more experiences, more stories, more perspectives.

@amytimmerman1It all starts with a healthy & regulated nervous system 🌀 #flexiblenervoussystem#nervoussystemregulation #risktolerance

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She also said it has a lot to do with your nervous system. It all comes down to how flexible and regulated it is. Personally, I’d rather fail and be an interesting person with stories to tell.

That made me very curious to see if there’s any psychology behind it.

There’s a concept called distress tolerance, which basically just means how well you can tolerate intense emotions or stressful situations without reacting impulsively or destructively.

Psychologists studied this and found that some people are just better at staying functional when distressed. Those who tolerate it better don't see their emotions as catastrophic, don't get completely consumed by how bad they feel, and don't feel the urgent need to escape discomfort at all costs.

While I see myself as easily adaptable and flexible, I can confidently say that I panic very easily and have a tendency to think about the worst-case scenario. I avoid the feeling of discomfort when it messes with my emotions negatively.

So why am I so willing to move countries and cities, switch jobs, and go out and about and meet more people?

I think the difference is that I can handle uncertainty when it’s outside of me, but not as well when it’s happening inside me.

Other scientists say that stress isn’t just about what’s happening to you, but how you interpret it. The same situation can feel stressful to one person and irrelevant to another. And I think that explains a lot of the split in my own life.

There are certain types of discomfort I seem to handle really easily. New places, new people, unfamiliar situations, things I’ve never tried before. Those don’t scare me in the way they seem to scare other people. If anything, they feel kind of energizing. I like this type of new. I want this type of news.

But then there are other things where I feel completely different. The ones where you’re expected to do the same thing over and over again, get it right, improve in a visible way. In those, if something didn’t work, it didn’t feel random. It felt personal. Like it said something about me. Like I was the problem.

But there’s another way to look at it.

Harvard professor Amy Edmondson talks about how not all failure is the same. You can “fail successfully.” Some failures come from carelessness, but others happen when you try something new or uncertain, where you couldn’t have known the outcome in advance. This is the type that generates learning.

If you never fail, you’re probably not taking enough risks or not trying anything new.

Failing well means taking smart risks, learning from what went wrong, and not punishing yourself for trying something new.

When I look at my own life through that lens, it feels a little less random.

I’m very willing to enter uncertainty. I say yes to things, I try things, and I put myself in situations where I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s probably why I’ve had the kinds of experiences I’ve had, the travel, the stories, the feeling of having lived in a lot of different spaces. And thankfully, I have lived a lot.

But that same pattern also means I’ve spent a lot of time in environments where nothing is guaranteed, where feedback is inconsistent, and where you can try really hard and still not get the outcome you wanted.

That combination can look like failure if you’re only looking at results.

I am someone who fails at things. A lot!!

And I am also someone who keeps walking into new ones anyway.

Those two things are not opposites. They’re probably the same thing. And if you’re failing, at least you’re trying.

So, congratulations on your failure!! Most people don’t even do that.

If you’ve been thinking a lot about the overlap between what you enjoy doing and what you’re recognized for, this piece is for you:

Recently, one of my friends sent an Instagram post to our friend group chat that said:

Which spritz are you?
Limoncello: young, fun!
Aperol: sunny, party-loving, gossipy!
Campari: more mature, wise
Hugo: elegant, classy
Cynar: more unconventional, alternative!

Naturally, that turned into a discussion of which friend matched which drink best. For me, clearly, there was no doubt.

“And me?”
“I knew you were going to ask: you’re Aperol, no doubt.”
“Renata Aperol”
“Like, Renata is clearly Aperol”
“Renata, there’s no doubt who you are”
“The only certainty is Renata Aperol 😂”
“Her branding is strong.”

Sunny.
Party-loving.
Gossipy.

And honestly? Fair.

Because those are all characteristics that make me who I am. Some people like them. Some people hate them. Some people do not exactly hate them, but they also do not want them around too much because, to them, it all feels like a bit much.

Which, if we are being honest, is also how people feel about Aperol Spritz itself.

Not everyone likes it. Some people think it is too bitter. Some think it is too sour. Some think it is too sweet. For me, it is the perfect mix.

And I think people are like that too. What feels like too much for one person feels exactly right for another.

One of my best friends did the Camino de Santiago and brought me an “Aperol Spritz” shirt.

I also have a matching Aperol necklace with a friend. At this point, it has become less of a drink preference and more of a full identity. Apparently, my branding really is that strong.

And I get it.

I do not think I am naturally shy. I was never the shy kid growing up. Quite the opposite, actually. I loved the spotlight. I was the kid who loved solving math equations on the board for the sole reason of being up there in front of everyone. I loved the reading out loud part in class. I did dance and theater because I loved being on stage. I could talk to just about anybody, and I usually did. As a child, I spoke to strangers so easily that my parents genuinely worried someone might try to kidnap me.

That openness used to come very naturally to me.

Then, as I got older, came criticism.

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Some “shut the fuck ups.” Some “you’re so annoying.” And especially the criticism aimed at the things I loved doing in public but was not especially good at. Why go to the board to solve a math problem if I could not solve all of them? Why read out loud when I often stumbled over my words? Why sing and dance when I was out of pitch and too stiff?

There is something people really dislike about visible enthusiasm when it is not paired with visible excellence. They do not love confidence before mastery or love joy that is messy. They definitely do not love someone doing something publicly just because she enjoys it.

And that kind of criticism gets inside you.

It definitely got inside of me. It made me more careful. More self-conscious. More aware of how much space I was taking up, how loud my laugh is, how noticeable I am.

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But even now, I still get glimpses of the very extroverted girl I used to be.

In hostels, for example, where I know no one, have nothing to lose, and will not stay long enough for anyone’s opinion of me to matter, I become her again. I talk to everybody. I am louder, funnier, more spontaneous, more shamelessly myself. And if they hate me, whatever. I probably will not see them again anyway.

That realization is a little sad. It is also a bit hopeful.

Because it means she is still there.

And maybe that is part of why the Aperol thing hit me the way it did. Aperol is bright. Bright orange. It is the kind of drink people immediately have an opinion on. You are either into it or you are not.

That feels familiar.

Sunny, party-loving, gossipy.

Sunny, to me, means warm. Open. A person who brings energy into a room. A person who likes people. A person who likes life.

Party-loving also feels true. I do love going out. It makes me feel free and fun. I love feeling free and fun. I love dancing, especially with my friends. I love being young, hearing music, and dancing. Especially with an Aperol in hand.

And then there is gossipy.

That one made me laugh because, yes, I do love information. I am also not someone who just lets things go. If I think you are mad at me, I will ask you and just about everyone around us why. I do not usually gossip about people’s private business, but I absolutely gossip about public information. Especially if that public information is about me. Then boy, you will hear about it.

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I hate leaving knots untied. If something is bothering me, or if I think something is bothering you, or if for some reason we are not seeing eye to eye, you will hear from me until every stone is unturned and there is literally nothing else to say.

Maybe that is part gossip, part anxiety, part curiosity, part intensity. Probably all of the above.

But it is also just me. Some people will love that about me, and some people will really, really not.

And honestly, fair enough.

I am not for everyone.

I think a lot of growing up is realizing that being widely acceptable is a terrible goal. I would rather be recognizable than universally palatable.

Some people will hate you. Some people will love you. You might as well just be who you are.

For me, that means being someone who loves dancing and friends and stories and attention and long conversations and overanalyzing every social interaction until there is absolutely nothing left to analyze.

And I am very grateful for my friends. The friends I can be loud with. The friends who laugh and call me “Renata Aperol”. The friends who love me because of my personality. That is what matters in the end.

There will always be people who prefer something quieter, cooler, less talkative, and less emotionally loud. Good for them.

They can order Campari.

As for me, I am Aperol Spritz.

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1. Went to college abroad and got my master’s at my dream school

   I got a master’s degree in data journalism from Columbia University and graduated cum laude from Pennsylvania State University with dual bachelor’s degrees in international politics and broadcast journalism.

2. Saw the Northern Lights

   Three nights in Tromsø. I did three tours: one by boat, one in a van (with the best guide), and one by bus. We saw the aurora on all three nights, with different levels of intensity. A blessing, really.

   

3. Lived in Italy for three months with strangers

   Rome, Milan, the Amalfi Coast, Como, Florence… all over. I met some really wonderful people and even befriended my elderly neighbor. Pro tip: the best way to learn Italian is by gossiping with old ladies.

   

4. Traveled to Scotland to report on immigration issues

   Penn State International Reporting class, 2022.

   

5. Traveled to Ireland and Northern Ireland to report on religion and conflict

   Columbia University Covering Religion class, 2024.

   Link to my articles here.

   

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6. Went to Indonesia with my day-one college bestie

   My graduation trip — and my first time in Asia. I loved the food and had the best time. Since I was traveling with my friend, who’s local, I got to visit places I never would have thought to go on my own.

   

7. Explored my hometown — shoutout to the Amazon

   Some college friends came to visit, so I finally did all the tours around Manaus.

   

8. Went on a solo trip to Hawai’i

   My first time traveling completely alone and staying in hostels by myself. I wanted the full “on my own” experience. I also had to spend my hard-earned money somehow. I swam with sharks (pretty cool), met great people, and made friends, two of whom even visited me later in New York.

   

9. Went to Spain with my best friends from college

   Spring Break 2023, baby. Barcelona was amazing and definitely even better with great company.

   

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10. Skydiving + hang gliding

    Skydiving in Manaus…

    

    @renatadaouMemories to last a lifetime #skydiving

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    … and hang gliding in Rio. Sorry, mom!

    

    @renatadaouMelhor vista, melhor experiência 🇧🇷❤️ #riodejaneiro #asadelta #hanggliding

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11. Scuba diving in Colombia

    My second time scuba diving and the first time I didn’t panic, so I could actually go all the way down.

12. Got a tattoo with an almost stranger

    (Not matching, relax.)
    (My idea.)
    (If you’re the stranger, pretend you didn’t read this.)

    

13. Worked for a Nobel Peace Prize laureate

    I interned with the Malala Fund in 2022. Still the best job I’ve ever had to date.

    

    @malalafund💻✍🏼 🍣 durante o dia, during the daytime 🎶🎭 ✨ durante a noite, at night #diaadia #dayinthelife #internship #internszn #malalafund

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    And those are just the things that happened after I turned 20. Much, much more happened during my teenage years ❤️ I’ve visited the Great Barrier Reef, gone bungee jumping, and swum with manta rays…
    

@renatadaou✨💖

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This year, even though it’s just February, I have been doing a lot of catching up so far with my family. I’ve spent years away, and I have been feeling sort of disconnected. It feels good to talk. And belong. The start of catching up happened sort of by accident. As soon as I landed in my hometown, I went to a cousin’s baby’s first birthday. The entire family on my mother’s side was there. The next thing I know, my mom is telling everyone how I tell her that I miss my family. How now, as grown-ups, my family has families of their own, and I feel like I never see them anymore. By the end of the night, there’s a whole family group chat created with the name “Renata’s Breakfast” with all the cousins (we’re a lot; my mom is one of eight). We have a date, a place, and a plan to meet up so we can all hang out with each other. For the first time in ten years, I believe.

Being home and going through my old possessions, I realize my cousins aren’t the only thing that I miss. I realized I wasn’t just missing them. I was missing myself.

I have a collection of 20+ journals that I have been writing in since I was ten. I have all these journals plus a bunch of letters I’ve never sent (I understand you, Lara Jean) and miscellaneous pieces of paper. Some of these contain my “deepest secrets.” Some of them just have a bunch of make-believe stories. And I was so good at those.

I spent days reading my old work. While my grammar and sentence structure have definitely improved, I envy the creativity that I had 10 years ago. My younger self was funny, creative, created all of these plot twists, and seemed to have endless energy to create infinite words and put everything down with good old pen and paper. These stories felt very nostalgic. Some of them I surprisingly remember the plot of. Some of them told the story of a girl that I now realize I have somewhat become. Some of these stories purely felt good. And I realized as well that, since that age, I haven’t really written anything for fun.

With an older age came bigger responsibilities. And with these responsibilities came the need to use my energy for other things that did not involve creating a 20K-word friends-to-lovers story. But I miss it. I miss writing without feeling like I am obligated to do it.

So now, welcome to my Substack.

Where I write things for fun and share thoughts that I would have done so without hesitation when I was 15. Just by creating this page, I have gotten so excited that I actually wrote another two posts that I am just waiting for the right time to publish.

Surely, many things have changed since then. I have now graduated with my master’s, spent time abroad, traveled to many places, and I am dating. Fifteen-year-old me would be very happy and very proud. To make her even prouder, I am doing the only thing that has been missing and that, for the past 3 years (according to my vision boards), I have been wishing to do. Write for fun.

And maybe I’ll start feeling like that 15-year-old full of dreams again ✨.

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