The Truth Is Mine to Keep

Three days have passed since I promised myself I’d write about leaving Barcelona, and now I understand why it was so hard to start. It’s not devastation that lingers, but the feeling of being pulled between two currents.

In Spain, I floated. I could step into any river—any moment, with anyone—and feel the water knew my name.

In California, I am swimming against the current just to stay still.

As the weight of leaving settled in, I called Miranda—another one of my long-distance soulmates. We quickly skipped to the “How are you really?”

I tried to say I was okay, but the more I spoke, the more my heart confessed things I hadn’t dared to name. That I am afraid. Not because I doubt the man I fell in love with, but because I don’t.

On the plane home, I watched Eat, Pray, Love for the first time (I know, painful choice). A scene at a makeshift Thanksgiving dinner in Italy stays with me: a woman says she is grateful to feel loved and secure. Her partner responds, “I thank God for fear. Because for the first time, I’m afraid the person next to me will be the one who wants to leave.”

Just like that, I am transported back to sitting on a park bench in Barcelona as Mr. International tried to pronounce “I’m totally fucked.” It comes out like “fuck-id,” I’m laughing until I’m crying. He, who leaps from planes without blinking, was afraid because he believed that in us, he had found something rare.

At the time, I thought loving him was making me brave. Now I see that loving him made me understand fear in a different way. It’s not fear of loss—it’s gratitude for finding something you want more than to simply protect your own heart, something you’re willing to set logic aside for.

We always knew my time in Barcelona would come to a temporary end. We pushed it away, pretending love could outlast distance. Now that we’ve reached it, I see that fear is merely proof that I have something worth missing. I’ve experienced a love that invited me all the way in.

Its compressed timeline demanded honesty and left no room for hesitation. We both chose to go all in, knowing the worst that could happen was an eventual goodbye. In that space, I found laughter and ease that turned the mundane into magic.

Miranda’s words anchored me for long-distance: “You cannot be so afraid that you stop yourself from trying.”

Just before I left Spain, I tried to return my house key to Mr. International, thinking he’d make use of a spare. He looked at me, confused, and said, “What are you doing returning the keys to your home?”

Miranda is right. You don’t return the keys to a place that makes you feel safe. You don’t retreat from a man who is still choosing you, even as you walk away. You don’t let fear win when love has already made itself at home inside you.

So I’ll be brave again—not because I’m fearless, but because love is worth fearing and choosing anyway.

As Elizabeth Gilbert wrote and happens to be the quote at the end of Eat, Pray, Love, “If you’re brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, and truly regard everything that happens as a clue… then the truth will not be withheld from you.”

I left everything familiar.
I followed every clue.
I faced myself.
And I found love.

Now, the truth is mine to keep.