Human anatomy is composed of two main parts: one is thick and visible, the other microscopic and internal. The visible part is superficial, external, like the final touch of a work constantly transforming as the body develops and reveals itself to the light over time. The internal part, on the other hand, is responsible for making everything happen, housing interconnected systems that work in harmony within their structures to keep the entire organism functioning. This human form is just one of the materialized representations of our existence. I wonder, at what point do we truly become aware from the inside out? Our daily existence seems so bombarded by the external that we rarely allow ourselves the moments for deep self-recognition. And when we turn our gaze toward our living existence, it’s inevitable to ask ourselves where exactly we stand in our lives right now. The answer can be as beautiful or as painful, depending on whether we are following ourselves or something or someone else.

The voice inside me, the one that has been there for as long as I can remember, becomes clearer each day and impossible to ignore. I am grateful for that, though sometimes it feels as if it wants to take full control of my being, to live from its divine expression. It’s as if all my dormant parts are awakening at different times and finally coming together. Life could never be a story told by someone else; understanding life is something that, in a deeply personal and intimate way, we must experience to truly grasp it. I’m still learning.

The concept of the word “loss” can lead to multiple interpretations, but all those places of “stagnation” are necessary to find the way out—the true way out. We try to hide our wounds in people, in travels, in parties; we attempt to suppress the pain of all those things that interrupted our innocence, to the point of forgetting the true initial purpose of why we are alive.

I have been analyzing each of those interruptions of innocence for several years, adopting different roles and voices to educate myself and explain each event of my life so far. I have also created these spaces to listen to diverse perspectives from other humans who, like me, have gone through these processes of internal healing.

In early 2022, I felt as if my vessel had reached waters of intense depths; it was as if all those electric storms wanted to destroy every part of a vessel that had arrived intact, with the pure desire to sail in balance, to feel the ocean breeze, and to taste the salty wind with the morning mist. Suddenly, I found myself in different currents, each one trying to pull me down. I let myself be carried by each of them because they all had something to teach me. For almost the past three years, I have been emerging from each of them, and the vessel has floated once more. With all those scars, it rises again towards the harmony of all that I wanted to experience. And although some of those currents, now under control, still remain somewhat turbulent at times, today I know I can navigate them. Even though I am still very young in my human form, I carry with me that other part of my human anatomy that no one has ever been able to materialize: the soul, and without it, I would not be able to observe my own existence.

It was mid-July of this year, and I felt an inner desire to go out and see you for the first time. I was a little dazed, and it took a lot of courage for me to go out alone at night to put a face to your breathing, to your life. I arrived at the place and almost immediately felt overwhelmed by all those human bodies around me, all completely unknown, immersed in a simulation of life where their gazes were directed everywhere but at themselves. And there I was, at that moment, searching for your gaze.

I climbed the stairs, and the first thing I saw was a human arm reaching out to take mine. We moved through the crowd, and suddenly, you disappeared. I could feel your loss; your gaze was impossible to catch that night, and your presence felt so intensely within me, as if it had awakened a fierce hunger that needed to be satisfied. I have always walked along the lines when it comes to men, always focusing on what feels more reasonable than attractive. But for the first time, I felt the curiosity to step outside my lines to untangle all of yours. Reason is always stronger than my recklessness, and I had to leave the place and walk away. I don’t know the details of your life story so far, not even the starting point of all those shapes that form one that keeps me from seeing yours. However, after taking responsibility for untangling mine one by one, there is nothing substantial inviting me to stay close to you—at least that is the reality now.

I feel in tune with myself and in constant conversation with the external world, and I am not going to lose this. I will not lose myself, not for anything or anyone. Even in the midst of all these current processes of understanding and learning, even in those hard and confusing spaces of loneliness, I am not willing to lose a single inch of my existence by trying to fit into something or someone where I don’t feel like myself. Even in those interpretative collaborations of knowing and experiencing something or someone new, I want to feel these experiences as a sharing and an extension of myself, not as if I have to place myself in a chilling space as a human sacrifice just to have some company.

Earlier this month, I gave my first healing yoga class to one of my friends and a new acquaintance. Before moving our bodies, we created a confidential space where each of us expressed how we felt at that moment in our lives. We felt the summer breeze and listened to the sound of our laughter in unison, grateful to be alive and experiencing our twenties.

After an impromptu visit to the first Friday art event of each month in Santa Fe, Denver, I returned to my apartment. Later that night, after almost two years, we created that space suspended in time, where we became one. I felt you in every internal and external depth of my existence; I felt your penetrating gaze into mine, your soft and deep kisses. I felt all the magic that you are. You took more than two hundred photos of me that night, as the lights of Denver shone through the large windows of the 15th floor of the building where I currently live. I know I’ve told you this before, but you are so beautiful.

This summer, I gave myself the freedom to go out one afternoon simply to walk two kilometers in search of lavender ice cream. I returned with a smile, and that same weekend, I had my first encounters with the sushi of this city and, of course, enjoyed a little more ice cream. It’s a bit unsettling when, in those silences with myself, I remind myself that I am currently in a completely new country and completely alone. But, like everything in this life, even this internal and external view of myself and the world is a temporary space, and I am grateful to have it. As I have written before, I infinitely believe in how essential and vital it is for every human being to have this opportunity in time because only then will we know from where we are truly choosing.

This summer, I’ve also been enjoying the variety of flowers combined in different arrangements, both in my apartment and in my current office. Creating these different combinations is something that brings joy to my eyes.

In this city, during the summer, many wild sunflowers grow in the gardens and along the sidewalks of the houses. I had never seen anything like it before, and even if I see them elsewhere in the future, they will always remind me of Colorado.

My eyes follow their own evolution depending on the attention I give to the objects, things, and people I observe. Each time, they develop different directions, and lately, I’ve been fascinated by architectural design. Denver has buildings of diverse styles, and every time I go out for a walk, I like to focus my attention on appreciating these differences and capturing them in photographs. Contemporary architecture is freer in its forms of expression, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to start getting to know these designs.

The greatest act of faith is when we let go, and God knows how much I’ve been putting this into practice lately. Each time I make this move, I feel as if millions of pins are piercing every one of my pores—a pain that comes out to breathe and is released when the wounds finally heal. It’s incredible how many people are willing to do or accept anything just to avoid feeling any pain, but by doing so, they end up hiding their true and luminous form until they reach the point of losing themselves completely. That’s not the place where anyone is meant to be in life.

This has also been a month of reunions, where I’ve paused whatever I was doing just for the pure, honest, and human pleasure of seeing a familiar face I hadn’t seen since December of last year. We were dancing while the city lights illuminated the space where we existed, and although romantically I don’t think my interest is in seeing you again, I am grateful for the time we coincided.

I feel a need to build an understanding of this new society, immersed and combined in so many different cultures. The connections and human relationships I have made so far here seem to lack structure, and in the awkwardness of that movement, I fully embrace the process, as I am also learning about this. It fascinates me how each country has its own movement, and how, when you move—even though you are human just like everyone else—it all feels like a completely new world to experience and find your own perspective within it.

I am observing my bodily movements in the different exercises I practice. In those large mirrors where I see myself every time I train, I observe my human figure—a completely healthy one that I am still learning how to take care of. I can feel the need for movement to balance my own energy.

I am learning different forms of expression, technicalities, and executions for various projects, from nothing to an idea conceived and developed as an extension of myself. Then, I put it into a shared dialogue to reach a conclusion where all involved parties agree. That’s how my work feels at the company where I currently collaborate; I am grateful to be part of its movement, and my intention is for this experience to merge with that part of my knowledge that will take me to all the places I want to reach.

I traveled to New Jersey this month to see my mother, the youngest of my sisters, my mother’s partner, my aunt, her husband, his family, and my dear maternal grandparents, who traveled for the second time to the United States accompanied by one of their daughters to join the family celebration. Seeing each other after so long was refreshing because I could see their innocence through their eyes, the joy of having created a large family where each member forges and follows their own path. It was also beautiful to see them finally living at their own pace, enjoying an active life, where gratitude overflows from their hearts and manifests in tears of joy. I am grateful to come from a family that follows their heart first, where love, gratitude, and human warmth are their standards. I wish them so much health and well-being for all eternity.

There’s a restaurant on Broadway that I visited twice this month; I had been there before, but it felt like some kind of portal where we saw each other’s faces for the second and third times. Across from this restaurant is a cinema called Mayan Theatre, which has always seemed to me an authentic place in Denver, as if it were one of the stages of my life’s existence so far.

In airports, the soul comes out to breathe, and expression feels more honest than ever; it’s as if it’s a place of beginning towards any direction, where I can hear myself clearly and see myself as an external observer, identifying the moment in my life where I currently stand and how I want to move forward. It’s like a new update being installed in any version of the software of my brain at that moment.

I took exactly four flights, and on the first two, I immersed myself in conversations lasting over two hours with the passengers next to my seat. Each one was older than me, and with absolute confidence, they shared with me the stage of life they were in. At the end of each conversation, I felt a desire to meet again and a deep gratitude for having the ability to speak another language to communicate with them.

In another scenario of this month, I found myself in the photography studio of one of my photographer friends. I was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt, Levi’s jeans, loose hair, and gold accessories. I let myself be directed by his professional eye, and I could see my age and the containment of my current existence in those digital photographs: a 25-year-old woman. How did I get here? It’s wonderful, and it is my deep desire to keep having all these different views of myself in the experiences that my soul and I want to explore.

I had let my eyebrows grow for months to achieve a balanced arch when the time came for the person at the brow grooming place to finally shape them without any problem. All that time of unruly hairs was worth it. Castor oil has become a materialized faith for the growth and care of my hair.

Our way of life is also made up of all those routines we follow, and one that has been a part of me since I moved here is that feeling of some mornings when I go out for a walk to get coffee. The morning sun wraps me in a warm feeling while the breeze refreshes and balances the ambient temperature, which feels perfect.

I can also see the imperfection of my existence and those spaces of contradictions that I sometimes face, as if I’m not entirely ready to experience all that I want to feel. In everything I messed up that night with you, by saying something while we were sleeping together and then doing something entirely different the next day, I realized later that it was a defense mechanism that forcibly sought to push you away. I still don’t know how I feel about this.

I spent three days that felt eternal, during the afternoon and night, trying to organize piece by piece each of the clothes I currently have with me, to make room for the others I still have in Florida and Puebla. It’s amusing how much importance we place on some material things, as if we’ve found in them a connection that becomes part of our identity. And even though we won’t take any of that with us when we die, because it is as unreal as the illusion of a unique existence in this form, I find it interesting how some of these things can make us feel more like ourselves.

In May of this year, I made the conscious decision to learn how to cook whole and healthy meals for myself. Even in that process, I find it challenging to nourish myself in a balanced and consistent way. But, well, I’m still learning.

The anxiety that comes from a lack of concentration has not been a good friend lately. I strive to find focus in an alert and natural way, but the United States is a truly intense country, and I don’t want to fall into the addiction to superficial focus that many of its inhabitants have. I want to find my own natural concentration. Again, I’m still learning.

Sometimes it feels like advancing and advancing, and other times like tiny lines of stepping back and stepping back. Then, the forward motion takes shape again, and it seems that those lines of retreat are merely glimpses of some reminder of a lesson already learned. The truth is, no one really knows what a definite advance is, because when you are conscious of your own life, keeping different perspectives open in various timelines is necessary for understanding. Who knows? In the end, whether it’s in retreat or advance, we are always moving, and one of the constants of life is change.

In the long stretching session this morning, just minutes before it ended, I felt a profound gratitude in my heart. And when we connect with gratitude, we end up being thankful for everything and everyone.