In a few weeks, I’ll be flying to Washington and Oregon to explore the cities of Seattle and Portland that I might one day call home. I have officially booked my flights, and I can hardly believe that something I’ve been thinking about for so long is becoming real.

The only way I can explain how this all happened is through a moment I had recently at a coffee shop.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time reading, reflecting, and trying to make sense of this persistent pull toward the Pacific Northwest. I have been asking myself whether it is the right time, whether I can make it work financially, and whether I am ready to start over somewhere new again.

I think a part of me was waiting for the universe to send me some grand gesture, an unmistakable sign that I had permission to go.

Instead, I found myself sitting at a coffee shop, reading Signs, a book about the ways our loved ones on the other side communicate with us, and reading about “intuitive pulls,” those feelings we often call gut instincts. The ones we cannot explain or necessarily see, but somehow feel in our bones.

As I sat there, something shifted.

The sunshine was streaming through the window, falling across the pathos plants and directly onto a woman sitting nearby. She had short maroon hair pinned back with bobby pins and wore a brown suede jacket. Outside, people were walking by as the autumn leaves fell around them.

I remember looking at that ordinary little scene and feeling an overwhelming sense of calm.

It was inexplicable, but I had this quiet knowing that the universe and I were in agreement. Everything felt settled, and I knew it was time to take the leap of faith.

So, later that evening, I went home and booked my flights.

Here is the thing: with the timing, my finances, and everything I need to prepare for, I realized I couldn’t spend forever waiting for the perfect moment. Sometimes, you have to make a decision with the information you have and trust yourself to figure out the rest along the way.

So, I’m officially going.

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I've been feeling called to the Pacific Northwest, and a lot of you have been asking me why I'm considering leaving Sacramento.

The truth is, I'm not leaving because I didn't “find” what I was looking for here. It's actually quite the opposite, but I knew coming to Sacramento was a stepping stone.

In these last eight months, it has given me friendship, op…

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For the last few weeks, I have been going through these spells of sadness where I close all of my blinds, take a “nap” because I am so exhausted by my mind, and try to dream my problems away. Thankfully, I am able to pull myself out of them, get my body moving, and get my mind turning again through creative outlets, like writing to you all.

I am just in this place where I am very unhappy.

I don’t feel Sacramento is where I am meant to be long-term. I never came here thinking this city was the end game, but I didn’t expect to want to leave so suddenly. Yet here I am, with my lease ending in a few months, thinking about and preparing for my next step.

This is typically the time when I start thinking, researching, and understanding what it takes to go elsewhere. Just as I have with every move, this feels like an intuitive call. Something I did not expect to be my next destination.

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The version that lets herself be honest before she has everything figured out. The version that talks about what’s happening behind closed doors, what she is longing for, and the things she doesn’t always know how to put into words.

Lately, I’ve been craving a different kind of life. One that is with more freedom, more pri…

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There is something funny about the way our minds create fear when we’re about to do something completely outside of our comfort zone. Originally, I wanted to spend my 30th birthday in Sedona, Arizona. I imagined starting a new decade surrounded by red rocks, quiet mornings, rest, relaxation, and grounded energy.

But something kept telling me to go to New Orleans instead.

And I knew exactly why I was hesitant.

I had never been to the South. As someone who is deeply intuitive, I already knew New Orleans was going to feel like a lot to take in, the voodoo, the vampires, the music, the magic, the history, and the very heavy and painful history of slavery that is woven into the city.

But I also knew that was exactly why I needed to go.

One day, I was sitting in a coffee shop and decided since I had the money, I was going to book the flight.

So I did.

And once I booked it, there was no backing out.

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For the first time in years, there isn’t a schedule telling me where I need to be. There isn’t a manager waiting for me to clock in or a paycheck coming from someone else’s dream. Every morning, I wake up knowing that the success of this business depends entirely on me.

That reality is both liberating and terrifying.

I can’t even lie, there have been moments of “Did I make the right decision?” followed almost immediately by “I can fucking do this.”

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Of all the manifestation practices I’ve tried, this is the one I return to every single year.

It’s also the one that changed my life.

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If it is with that person, great and if not, great. The beauty of the last article, I wrote to you was that I was vulnerable. I didn’t wait for a right moment, I didn’t hold back the feelings that came up and shared my heart. I think sometimes, we as society don’t do that enough. It’s not embarrassing and it actually is refreshing to have deep intense feelings for individuals. There is no guessing and you can create the closure that you did that all you could. That is why I am okay, since I last wrote to you.

However, I recently made a huge life decision — to leave my coffee shop job.

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I had four months left on my lease, living with my best friend and our two border collie puppies, when I met him on Hinge. And if there is one thing about this page, I never disclose names. So we shall call him my Virgo, iykyk.

I remember when I first met him, I was so enamored by his charm. He was such a man in my eyes, he was in his mid-thirties, making him almost ten years older than me. He was in the corporate IT world, and on Hinge he had pictures of him at weddings in a suit, to shirtless in Tulum. One of his prompts said “finish the lyric,” which was a verse from “Nice and Slow” by Usher.

So that’s how it started. I finished the lyrics and we instantly got to talking.

Eventually, we exchanged numbers. I vividly remember staying up late texting about our desires in a person and our values, and what we had within ourselves. Everything felt like a match. Something about him felt so right and so easy to talk to. I wanted to pursue him, so I proposed that we meet soon.

I knew that if I liked him, he could change my mind about leaving Boston.

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I arrived Friday morning and spent a few quiet hours with her before we got ready to attend my great-aunt’s funeral service. I didn’t know her deeply in my adult life, but I carry small, soft memories of her from childhood—like the way she helped create my nickname, the one my grandmother always called me growing up: “Chenche,” June bug in Spanish. It’s strange how certain fragments of childhood stay intact like that, even when most of your upbringing was shaped away from your biological family, even when your memories are more emotional impressions than consistent stories.

And maybe that’s part of what makes going back home feel so disorienting. It’s not just a place. It’s every version of yourself you’ve ever been forced to become in order to survive it.

In those first hours with my mom, she opened up in the way she sometimes does when there’s finally a quiet moment.

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Ever since I moved here, I’ve been constantly on the go. Between working both of my jobs, barista and teaching, I’ve barely had a moment to pause. So much that eventually, it caught up to me.

One morning, my body forced me to slow down. I woke up with a bloody nose, feeling dizzy and lightheaded before I had even made it through the first hour of my shift. I tried to push through it, but I couldn’t, and I ended up going home.

Honestly, I needed that moment. It made me realize I’ve been trying to be everywhere, doing everything, all at once.

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Everyone loves a “she moved” narrative.
Everyone loves a fresh start.
A studio apartment. A new coffee shop job and a grand opening.

I won’t pretend that it isn’t beautiful. It is. I am grateful in ways I don’t even know how to articulate without sounding dramatic.

But what I didn’t anticipate was how raw it would feel to build a life from almost nothing — again.

Because the reality is, I’ve done this many times before, but with roommates. The walls were less empty and the rooms were filled with conversation.

This move is stretching me as I enter my thirties, and I’m alone.

My apartment echoes. Not metaphorically — literally. There are no rugs yet. No bed frame. Just an air mattress that shifts every time I turn over at night. A couch I bought off Facebook Marketplace that makes the place look slightly more inhabited. A kitchen with mismatched basics. No art on the walls. No softness yet.

People see the move, but they don’t see me calculating Lyft totals because my anxiety hasn’t quite loosened its grip enough to let me get lost on the light rail yet. They don’t see how humbling it is to build a life from scratch with only what fits in your rental car and your nervous system.

On Valentine’s Day, my mom and I drove back to Fresno so I could say goodbye one last time.

I didn’t expect to cry the way I did.

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It’s been over a year since I last wrote to you, and so much has happened in that time that I hardly know where to begin, but I suppose the best place to start is after leaving Salem, Massachusetts.

I came home to Fresno and, for the first time in awhile, found myself living again under my mother’s roof in the spare bedroom, which was a strange mix of comforting and confining at the same time, because while I was here to care for her after her massive knee replacement and help stabilize her household, I also had my own life to figure out, my own future to consider, and my own restless heart that could not simply stay still no matter how much I tried.

Coming home meant giving myself permission to slow down, to pause, and to surrender to the moment in ways I hadn’t been able to for a very long time, and for months I did just that.

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I really wasn't sure what I wanted to write about this week. In fact there were many topics I just couldn't pick one. After all, we haven't even scratched the surface of the months that I was away from you. I guess I'm going back and forth between the past and the present.

But I think what needs to be written about is what I've been facing recently:

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It has been nine months since I last wrote to you. I tried many times to pick it back up, but I didn’t know where to start. Each time I reminisced, it became too overwhelming and painful to relive the situations, so I just never did.

There's just so much to talk about. I wasn't sure if I should pick up where I left off back in March in Denver or pick up right where I am here in Salem. I want to get to all the months in between and what has happened in my life, like the falling out I had with my best friend, or how I met the man of my dreams this summer only for him to pass away this fall, or how I drove across the country and accomplished one of the biggest goals I've had in the last two years.

I guess I have been afraid of being perceived and too ashamed to admit my decision-making behind closed doors in these months away.

If you're new here, thank you for being curious and listening to the real and raw moments of my life that I don't openly express on Instagram or TikTok. Well, to this depth, I do on Substack. But if you are not new and have been here all along, thank you for supporting me and my writing. As you know, some of these posts are not easy to get out, but you encourage me each and every time to keep going and remind me that I am not alone in these feelings, which is why I am back.

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Disclaimer: As you know, I encourage you all to reach out, give your love and support when I write to you. However, please do not mistake my vulnerability as an opportunity for an open discussion and/or unsolicited advice, respectfully. These stories are very real to me and not always easy to write but they are also not a true or detailed depiction of my self-worth or the love that I have for the passions I am chasing.

Sometimes, I feel like my purpose in this life is to heal others and stay single.

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I want to apologize for not showing up these past few weeks. 

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