After a summer abroad, I am finally back home in Boston. To be more specific, I am writing this from my best friend’s couch in Dorchester while catching up on reality TV and eating cold Chinese food- a truly American welcome home. I have so much to share about my time away, so many feelings to hash out, so many love stories to write about the mesmerizing city of Istanbul, so many anecdotes to share about my beautiful friends, new and old. But not yet. Those will come in time. For now, I just want to talk about the last 36 hours of my trip while they’re poignant in my mind, because wow. I had the most topsy-turvy, up and down (and then up and down and up again), absurd day and a half of my life. I’m telling you, guys- you cannot make this shit up.
On a Monday in late August I enjoyed my last day is Istanbul. I spent it saying goodbye to a city I’ve grown to love, alongside friends who I love even more. We ate delicious homemade menemen for breakfast, took a ferry down the Bosphorus, explored an ancient Ottoman burial ground, drank tea and chowed on gozleme, watched the sunset from atop the city while sucking down stuffed mussels and cold drinks, smoked shisha on a beautiful cobblestone alleyway, laughed and ate and drank and I tried not to cry. It was perfect. When we got back to the airbnb around 2:30am, my cute drunk friends fell asleep and I packed, wrote goodbye letters, and took in the city one last time from their porch. At 5am I woke up my best friend Shelby, she walked me to my taxi and said goodbye, and I tried not to freak out too much on the ride to the airport. The sun was just beginning to rise and I watched it paint Istanbul in gold one last time as I kissed the summer goodbye on both cheeks.
(Sidenote: My first weekend away, my purse was stolen and my cell phone subsequently swiped. Whoops! All of the pictures in this blog are courtesy of friends who traveled with me, or in the same places as me at different times)
Photo of Istanbul courtesy of Greg Sutton – Insta: @decountrified Blog: www.decountrified.com
My flight to Lisbon was at 7:30am, where I would have a 24 hour layover before my flight home to Boston on Wednesday morning. I figured I would sleep on the plane and be rested enough for a nice afternoon of exploring Lisbon. I tried and failed miserably. By around noon local time on Tuesday I arrived at my hostel, hungry and halfway delirious. My plan was simple- shower, nap, explore, eat some nice food, and get some sleep for my flight home. But when I went to check in, the kind woman at the front desk informed me check in wasn’t until later that afternoon. I could leave my things, but would have to wait to shower and nap.
Running on fumes and coffee grinds, I left my suitcase and set out to explore. About a hundred yards from my hostel, there was a small gathering of tree-shaded stone benches overlooking the Tagus River. I climbed the cobblestone hill to the benches, sat down and admired the water moving beneath the sun like glitter. The view was breathtaking and the perfect backdrop for tourists in search of an instagram-worthy selfie, and I sat and people watched as visitors from all over the world flooded in and out. The constant influx of foreigners also made it the perfect spot for young Portuguese street boys to peddle their products. In Portugal, as part of a radical drug policy seeking to combat a growing opioid crisis, all drugs are decriminalized. (It’s been incredibly successful, in case you’re wondering.) And so every couple of blocks there is a smattering of teenagers and young men not so subtly selling them to you. In my thirty or so minutes of hanging at the park, I was offered weed a half dozen times in a half dozen different ways and politely declined each time. I chatted with the boys a bit- many were about the same age as the teenagers I had just spent a summer working with, and the counselor in me wanted to check in and make sure they were doing okay- and quickly earned a spot on their good side. Since the park was right by my hostel I passed by it often, and we exchanged friendly hellos each time.
Photos of Portugal courtesy of Colleen Crilley – Instagram:@colleen_crilley
After some writing and people watching, I realized I was starving and wandered off to find some food. I stumbled upon an outrageously delicious lunch of fried pork belly and clams, and walked it off with some more exploring. Finally, I returned to the hostel for a much needed shower. Afterwards I felt clean and new, but I was still running on about an hour of airplane sleep and exhausted. I was unsure what to do with my night, and so I signed up for a hostel group dinner at 8:30 so I could enjoy some cheap food and maybe make some new friends. It was around 4pm and I thought about maybe taking a nap, but got worried that I wouldn’t wake up, especially since I was without cell phone and hence had no alarm. One of my biggest regrets in my travel life is a night in Santiago, Chile where I went to take a nap before going out and didn’t wake up until the next morning. I wasn’t gonna let that happen again. And so I did the only logical thing- I set out to find some more coffee so I could use caffeine to keep my heavy eyes open.
I wandered a few blocks from the hostel to a cafe that had caught my attention earlier in the day with its delicious looking pastries. I walked in and as I was perusing the counters 
for the perfect afternoon treat, the man behind the counter asked if I needed any help in broken English. Still captivated by the beautiful food, I asked for a coffee and some assistance picking the perfect snack, and the barista recommended some giant, vanilla custard filled, sugar encrusted, puff thingy. I was sold, and when I looked up to thank him for the dope rec, I noticed that he was cute. Like, really cute. He was tall and lean with tan olive skin with oil-dark hair. He had a matching black beard and a striking skull and flower tattoo on his left forearm, a sneaky tragus piercing, and this goofy, enchanting little smile. As he rang up my order, he asked my name and where I was from, and told me he was trying to learn English. We exchanged some small talk and when it was time to pay, I wanted to buy something else just to stay and talk to him longer. But I was overtired and uncouth, and so I took my things and left.
As soon as I walked out of the cafe, I regretted it. Cmon, Sarah! He was chatting you up and saying he wanted to work on his English- that was the perfect alley oop to ask him to hangout! After all, I was only in Lisbon for one night, what did I possibly have to lose? As I walked back to the park, I cursed myself for being so lame. I sat down on the stone benches beside Adilson, one of the street boys who I had befriended earlier that morning, and shared my pastry with him. Adilson was more man than boy, probably somewhere in his late twenties, and had crutches, a slight tick, and an easygoing smile. I sat facing one direction, admiring how the afternoon sun sparkled off of the river, and Adilson sat facing the opposite way, eying all of the tourists spilling in from the side streets- his potential customers. I watched him work. He seemed to be in charge, knew all of the locals, dapped everyone up who came in and out of the park, conducted the other boys and young men from his post. He had hustle, and had to respect it.
After sitting beside Adilson for awhile, I decided that I had to get my hustle on, too. If I wanted something, I had to make it happen. My 24 hours in Portugal would be what I made it, nothing more and nothing less. And so I devised a sleep deprived, sugar fueled plan: I would get in on the drug game, sell as much product as I could in 24 hours, and go home filfthy rich!!! JUST KIDDING MOM & DAD. No, my plan was better. I had wanted to get some postcards, and there was a shop I could grab them from right by the cafe with the handsome man. I would go get my souvenirs and casually stop in the cafe on the way back to the hostel, where I would buy some random little cheap treat, holler at the cute cafe man, and read the vibe. If it felt like he was flirting back, I would ask him out. Boom. Perfect. Foolproof! I gave myself a little pep talk, said goodbye to my drug dealer buddy, and headed out.
As I was wandering down the cobblestone streets to the square to get postcards, I heard someone call my name. Considering I was in Lisbon and knew no one, I figured it was 
another Sarah and kept walking. But then I heard it again, and again. I turned around…and it was the cute cafe man! He had seen me walk by the cafe and followed me outside, trailing me for half a block before getting my attention. When he caught up, he simply said, ‘come sit!” and turned around, motioning for me to follow him back to the cafe. I stumbled along behind him, equal parts delighted and dumbfounded. Had this beautiful foreign cafe man, the one who I had planned to go back and work up the courage to ask out, really come out of the cafe to chase me down the street? Was I in the Lizzie McGuire movie?
He sat me down at a table in front of the cafe and started bringing over assorted cookies and croissants. “We’re closing soon, and we have so much food left. Try these, they’re on me. Would you like some fresh squeezed orange juice?” I sat there in shock and nibbled at the food, trying to figure out what was happening. When I asked his name to thank him, he replied Paulo, and I realized I was literally living the Lizzie McGuire movie. (Quick refresher- Paolo is the name of the cute Italian pop star who courts Hilary Duff in the classic romcom. Unreal coincidence, amirite?! Except that my Paulo was a cafe manager, not a pop star, and Brazilian instead of Italian. Just as dope in my book!) As he cleaned up and prepared for closing, we chatted about his roots back in Brazil, how he had moved to Portugal a few years ago with his brother, about his love of cooking and baking. He asked me about my travels, how I was liking Lisbon, and how long I would be around for. Shit, this is going well, I kept thinking to myself, and he’s giving me free food- he’s def into it!
My assumptions were affirmed when Paulo and the only other person working had a spirited exchange in Portuguese. His counterpart, Sergio, was a middle aged, chubby Portuguese man with a lazy eye and slight creepy uncle vibes. (I know- this practically writes itself). Sergio was talking loudly and motioning at me, and when I asked Paulo what he was saying, Paulo blushed. “He says you’re very beautiful, and he says if I don’t go out with you, he will.” I laughed, blew Sergio a kiss, and utilized my one Portuguese word: “Obrigada!” Paulo and Sergio cracked up. Sergio walked over to my table. “So…what are you doing tonight?” As my internal monologue screamed “HELL YEAH, WE OUT HERE!” I pulled it together and offered up a casual, “Well, I’m getting dinner at my hostel, but maybe after that we could hangout?” We discussed a when and where, and then it was settled. My master plan had worked! I was going on a date with the cute cafe man!
By now it was just about 8pm and the cafe was closing. I was going to head back to my hostel for dinner when Paulo intercepted me- “Do you have a few minutes before dinner? I want to show you something.” I had half an hour to kill and figured, why not? Bold Sarah had taken charge.
We said goodbye to Sergio and locked up shop. Suddenly Paulo took me by the hand and whisked me through the backstreets of Lisbon. The whole city was ancient white stone 
roadways sandwiched between pastel colored apartments, opening up to hilly views of the river on one side and the ocean on the other. It was beautiful. Paulo led me through bustling evening crowds and across busy streets until finally we turned a corner and the road opened up to a small outdoor marketplace and cafe. Behind the cafe tables was a ledge and a drop, and as we got closer, I watched the city reveal itself beneath me. He had taken me to a hilltop lookout to see the sunset. I watched the sprawling city soak in the last few drops of golden day. As my eyes grew big, his smile widened- “You like it?” I loved it. I was straight up swooning. It took a second to process what was happening. This lovely handsome Brazilian cafe man had snatched me out of the street, fed me pastries, and brought me to a local hangout to watch the sunset. Was I dreaming? Could my life be any more like a rom com? Could things possibly get any better? Then he pulled me in close and kissed me. Okay, maybe they could get a little bit better.
An image of the sunset spot, miradouro de são pedro de alcântara, that I found on google
We sat down onto a park bench to watch the sunset and chat. We communicated in a mix of English and Spanish with some Portuguese sprinkled in, talking about family and work and music and food. I was simply too overtired to put in the effort to keep my guard up, and let myself settle into his comfortable and inviting presence. Soon it was almost 8:30, and I needed to get back to the hostel for dinner. We stood up to leave, and he looked at me excitedly. “I know you have dinner plans, but I also had another idea. I was thinking maybe we could go get a few drinks and go dancing?”
Um, HELL YEAH! Anyone who knows me knows that one of my all time favorite activities in the world is drinking and dancing. It was like this man was hand-crafted specifically to meet all of my wants and desires. I immediately decided to bail on dinner. For a second time, Paulo took me by the hand and led me into the heart of Lisbon. After a few minutes of walking, we came to a neighborhood full of open-air bars and restaurants. We ducked into one playing hip hop and ordered a few drinks, and started sipping and swaying. Somewhere along the ride, I had decided to just embrace this ridiculously spontaneous and romantic adventure, and so I was dancing and drinking and enjoying Paulo’s presence as if we had known each other for years. There was something bittersweet yet beautiful about our chance encounter. Knowing it was fleeting made it feel even more magical.
After awhile, we were both growing hungry and set out to find food. Once again I took the backseat as Paulo, the charming and knowledgeable local, led me to the loveliest dinner spot. We cozied up on a soft leather bench and dined on homemade pasta with chicken and shrimp. I threw back garlic like candy and somehow it didn’t deter his kisses one bit. We cheersed glasses of red wine and watched the beautiful, tipsy people wander down the streets outside the open windows. Portuguese pop music spilled out from the speakers, and Paulo and I stood up for an impromptu, mid-dinner dance. Everything was a dream.
After a few more hours of wine and music and romance, Paulo dropped me off safely at my hostel. We made breakfast plans- at his cafe of course- and I went to bed with a smile on my face. A few short hours later, I woke up, still pretty delirious and overtired, checked out, and wheeled my suitcase the few blocks down the street to say goodbye to my cute cafe man. I ducked in and was immediately greeted by Sergio, the creepy uncle, with a hug and sloppy kiss on the cheek. Paulo stood behind him and laughed and apologized, and then greeted me with a hug and kiss of his own that I much preferred. I sat down and enjoyed a coffee and spinach and cheese croissant, and took a famous pasteis de nata for the road. Paulo wouldn’t let me pay for any of it. My time came to head to the airport, and Paulo stepped outside, gave me a squeeze goodbye, and put me in a cab.
On the plane ride home I tried to nap, but I was too worked up. I was sorting through the remnants of a powerful summer, reeling in the romance of my 24 hours in Portugal, and staggering back into an uncertain yet exciting life back home in Boston. I was saturated in transition and couldn’t get my mind to settle into sleep.
7 hours later I landed in Boston, and waited for about twenty minutes for my bag before heading out to the pickup area. I hopped on my laptop and shot a quick message to my step sister who was on her way to get me (remember, no phone), and headed out to the curb to try to find her.
As I posted up with my suitcase and scanned left and right looking for my ride, a man on the crosswalk caught my attention. He was about a fifty feet away from me and something about him felt eerily familiar. As I was eyeing him I noticed that he was staring back at me, too. When he reached the other side of the street he stopped, swiveling his body to face mine. As his face started to slowly register, I began to question my sanity. There was no way. I must just be tired and seeing things. I mouthed his name and he nodded. Nope, no fucking way. I mouthed it one more time to be sure, and he nodded again. I stood in disbelief as he started to walk over towards me.
Only when he hugged me hello and I felt his very real arms wrap around me did it register that it was not an apparition: it was really my ex. The only man I’ve ever loved. The only person who’s ever broken my heart in half. The man who I last saw in the fall, both of us in tears, before tragic circumstances tore him away from me. The man who I vehemently loved through telephone wires for months before he abandoned me and broke my heart without explanation in early spring. (For context: while we were dating, he and his family were facing some serious issues regarding their immigrant status, including potential deportation. It was fucking brutal.) We hadn’t spoken in months, and I honestly didn’t know if he was in this country or another, dead or alive. He had broken up with me, and I was working so hard to move on. I still missed him, still wondered what went wrong, still cried tears over him on occasion. I had both feared and prayed I would never see him again; and here he was.
A big chunk of the why I had gone abroad was to distance myself from the life we had begun creating together. When he broke up with me, he left a stain on my life. My room, my home, my neighborhood, all of Boston felt like it was soaked in memories of him. I wanted to go across the ocean and wash myself clean of him and feel new again. And I had done a pretty decent job- I avoided reaching out, explored new connections, and most importantly, started to finally believe in a new future for myself, one that was beautiful and exciting even without him in it. And yet here he was, waiting outside of the airport, the first familiar face I saw on American soil. The same exact day, same exact time, and same exact terminal as me. What the actual fuck.
We exchanged some small talk as I stood there, dumbfounded. I was half-delirious from lack of sleep, disheveled and disgusting from my days of travel, thrashing in the waves of transition, and in complete shock. He was tall, dark, and well-dressed, in a button down pattern-speckled black shirt, black slacks, and leather shoes. His skin was extra tan from the summer sun, making his smile seem an even more brilliant white than usual. He was asking me about my family, and I asked about his. I told him my dad had gotten married and he passed along his well wishes, he told me his uncle lost his job and I passed along my condolences. He was there for an interview and when I asked if that meant he was doing well, that he was safe and secure, he replied, “es complicado. (it’s complicated).” He asked how my job was going, I told him I didn’t have one, and when he asked what happened, I borrowed his phrase: “it’s complicated.”
As we awkwardly caught up, I tried to remember the words I had composed in my head the hundreds of times I had imagined this conversation. I tried to recall all of the the perfect, poignant things I had planned to say to him, how I was going to call him out, make him understand what he had put me through, finally address all of my unanswered questions. But I was so out of it, so completely caught off guard, that I had trouble registering what was happening and found myself rendered completely useless. All I could muster up was unfiltered honesty: “I feel like my head is going to explode. I feel like I’m going to cry.”
He looked at me and asked, “Por que? (Why?)” He had always had a habit of nervously smiling when he felt uncomfortable or upset, and I watched the familiar forced grin spread across his face. Really, dude? After all of the heartache and pain he had put me through, all he had to offer me was por que, why? As if he didn’t know why I might want to fall apart? As if he wasn’t the one who had caused it?
The rest of the conversation was unremarkable and uncomfortable. We exchanged some more small talk, he gave me more vague and strange answers about his life, we both shuffled in place awkwardly. He said it was good to see me, asked if I had the same number, said we should catch up sometime, that he would finally explain things. It all just sounded like more broken promises to me. I could feel him getting ready to walk away, and a question pushed at my dazed mind and found its way onto my lips. I looked him in the eyes: “Are you happy?”
He stared at me. “De verdad? (For real?)” I nodded. He shook his head, “No.” His pristine white smile was still plastered on his face, but his eyes grew hollow. “Mi vida es muy difícil y complicada ahora. Pero esta bien, es normal. (My life is very difficult and complicated now. But it’s okay, that’s normal.).” I knew he was telling the truth, and as much as he had put me through, his pain still scalded me. I thought back to the days when I had been his respite, his refuge from the chaos, and wondered if he even had a safe place anymore.
But those time were long gone. I had tried to build a shelter of my love to keep him safe and warm, and he had knocked it down. He had pushed me away, over and over again. He refused to let me in. He wouldn’t accept my love, didn’t know how to. And how could he when he was having trouble loving life, loving himself? As he stood in front of me, tall, dark and handsome, dressed to the nines and smiling, still the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, I peered past the facade and saw the broken down soul hiding underneath and felt deeply, intensely sad. But it wasn’t my job to take care of him anymore. You can’t help someone who won’t let you. You can’t reach out and hold a closed hand. The man I had loved, the only man I have ever loved, wasn’t there anymore.
I looked up at him, put my hand on his arm, and replied. “Espero que un dia, no es normal. (I hope that one day, it’s not normal.)” I meant it. He thanked me, and said he had to go. We hugged goodbye, he kissed me on the cheek, and he walked away and didn’t look back.
I stood there dumbfounded and watched him go. I still couldn’t fathom what had just happened. Then the trembling in my cheeks started, and I could feel the tears starting to burn at the corners of my eyes. I wheeled my suitcase inside, sat down on a bench, and rerouted all of the energy in my body towards sucking the tears back in. Not here, not now, not in my first minutes home, not after such a beautiful summer, not after how much progress I had made. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love to cry, how healthy and cathartic I find it to be. But I was not going to give him these tears, he had already gotten more than he deserved. A few escaped and I wiped them away, took a deep breath in, and walked back out to find my ride.
************************************************************
At first, running into my ex felt like a giant slap in the face. I was angry, incredulous, upset at the universe. How could this be happening? How could he be there, literally the second I got home, waiting to destroy my life all over again? What did I do to deserve this? When would the wound ever heal if it kept being ripped open? How the hell would I ever move on?
I kind of despise the phrase “everything happens for a reason” because I think it dilutes human experience. I don’t like the idea that pain and suffering and loss and hurt are reasonable things- I don’t think that they are meant to be understood, explained, puzzled into some master plan. But I do believe in synchronicity, the idea of meaningful coincidences. My ex showing up on the exact same day, at the exact same time, and at the exact same terminal as me was just too much of a coincidence to not have purpose. I just had to figure out what the hell the purpose was.
It’s been about a month since seeing him, and I’m doing okay. I have not broken in half or spontaneously combusted like I thought I would. Since the breakup, my typical response to an interaction with him has been a significant mental dip. I would nosedive into sadness and hopelessness for a few days or weeks, feel like I’d made no progress, and then slowly resurface.
When I got home from the airport that morning, I sat on my friend’s couch (yup, that same couch in Dorchester- I frequent it) and braced myself for the dip. For the tears and self doubt and depression fog that would encompass me. But as I sat and waited, it didn’t come. I felt a lot of things- confusion, shock, empathy, pity. But I also felt some things I had not felt in awhile- relief and clarity. The person I had been holding out for, the love I had been praying would rekindle someday, the fantasy fairytale of a future life with him that still consumed the corners of my mind, simply didn’t exist. I knew because I had looked into his eyes point blank, and even though it looked like him, and talked like him, he wasn’t in there anymore. It was like I was talking to a shell of my former lover. He used to light up my world, but the light wasn’t even on anymore. All that was left of the fire was ashes.
With some time and space, and some help processing with loved ones, I’m coming to think that him being there might not have been the utter catastrophe it initially felt like, but in actuality, an incredible gift. Seeing him in the state he was in was a huge reality check. And maybe it was also the closure I’ve been asking for for so long. I finally got the goodbye I had been begging for.
And something else- the timing of it all, the bizarre and perfect sequence of uncanny events- that shit doesn’t happen by accident. My religious and spiritual beliefs are complicated, but I do believe that there is a power much greater than me working in my life. Whether god or karma or the universe, someone or something was looking out for me. If I hadn’t had such an idyllic escapade with Paulo, I don’t think I would have been able to survive seeing my ex. My spontaneous, romantic, magical night in Lisbon gave me just enough hope and armor to face my heartbreak without crumbling. It reminded me of the excitement of my future just in time to face my past. The juxtaposition of the two is entirely unbelievably and utterly surreal. My life has never felt more like a Lifetime movie. If it didn’t all happen to me, I wouldn’t believe it was real.
All of this does not mean I’m magically “fixed”. Healing is not linear. I still grieve the loss of him. On top of that, I’m definitely a bit jaded now- what I went through was pretty emotionally scarring. I’m hopeful that I’ll get the chance to love someone again someday, and yet I’m well aware of how terrifying it will be. I still don’t have answers, but I’m coming to realize that the details don’t really matter. Regardless of the circumstances, he is unable to love me in a healthy way anymore. We had something magical, and it is gone. But I deserve magic again and nothing less.
Like I said, I have not dipped like I thought I would. Instead, something strange is happening- I’ve actually been feeling kind of great. I’ve felt out of control of my urges and emotions for awhile now, but I’m starting to feel back in the driver’s seat. It’s the best sensation, like feeling is coming back into your fingertips after they’ve been frozen and numb for months. And on top of that, this new sense of hope is washing over me. For the first time in a long fucking time, I feel like the universe is on my side. I’m far from where I want to be, and still have a lot to work out personally, professionally, emotionally, financially, but the little voice who always used to tell me I could do it is finally reemerging. It has been dormant for so long, and damn, it feels good to have it back.
So yeah- what an outrageously surreal thirty six hours of my life, huh? I told you, you can’t make this shit up. I doubt the next chapter will be as exciting, but I’m finally feeling ready to start writing it.
Photo courtesy of my French friend Louis
Growing Up or Something Like It 