October, 2023.
Dear (un)known:
I write these lines, which I unashamedly admit serve as therapy to release those ghosts or energies that, without realizing it, have been growing inside me for some time (meditation and mindfulness are fine, but I want to try this new technique).
With this entry, I want you to experience with me the emotions that constantly haunt me. However, I warn you that, as I tattooed several years ago, my emotional world is like a roller coaster (perhaps something more accentuated lately), so my only request is that, openly, you help me to validate these feelings (don’t worry about how it sounds, really, I prefer to hear: “what a bitch situation” rather than the famous phrase: “calm down, all this will pass”).
More than five years ago I landed in Nepal, without having any idea what would happen later. I was 24 years old (24!!), and had an energy and vitality that had nothing to do with that of the actual Nacho (I want to emphasize that I do not say this with nostalgia, but with full awareness of the “phase” where I find myself). Nothing made me think that a few years later we would be assisting more than 1,000 children, nine schools and hundreds of families (a success, right?).
However, I believe that the scope of this project (which, of course, would not have been possible without the support of people like you, contributing, reading me or telling me: “what a fucked-up situation”) has been inversely proportional to the energy with which I have lived it. To give you an image (because it’s worth more than the 653 words of this entry), I feel like a bottle that not only has less and less water, but that is beginning to be squeezed by the time (again, no shame, I even tell you this with a bit of pride).
Living so far from home is not easy (even harder if you add to this combination spending half of your time living in the jungle, among indigenous communities, without electricity and walking an hour to take a shower in the river). Time has shown me that ties that I thought were solid and indestructible have loosened and faded (because this is much more than a geographical distance—almost 9,000km, by the way—). Luckily, I still have people, friends, family and others that I have not even met in person, who help me keep moving forward, with their encouragement, their trust, or simply with their empathy when they tell me that the situation I’m going through really sucks.
I am aware that I am entering a new phase, one of change. This, despite everything, motivates me, because it is what I dreamed of from the beginning. I am a stubborn person (“narrow minded”, “intransigent”, “square head”), and this sometimes leads me to suffer more than necessary. Luckily, after these years (and a therapy that has lasted more than a year, and I am beginning to miss) I have managed to identify the emotions and feelings that predominate in me (now I have to learn to accept them and talk about them, to avoid making this ball bigger and bigger). But, despite everything, I know that we are getting closer to our goal, building solid pillars so that this house can hold up, and I, without making too much noise, can step aside and appreciate from a little far away and with perspective how beautiful this house is.
Now, to finish, if you ask me, how am I? I’ll tell you I feel more relaxed (vomiting these things help, really). But I ask you that, when we talk, you help me just by telling me: “it sucked!”, because I already know that, like Milena Busquets’ book, “This too shall pass” (and we will talk about all this with a beer, sitting in a chair, listening to the waves of the sea).
Cheers!
