**The Weight of Belonging**

Date: 2025-09-13 09:04:31

Barcelona’s morning light slants through my balcony blinds, painting stripes of gold on the half-unpacked suitcase still slumped in the corner. I should finish unpacking today—really, I should—but the Lisbon tram tickets peeking out from the side pocket feel like tiny anchors to a version of myself I’m not ready to release yet.

Last night, over tinto de verano and patatas bravas at our usual spot, Clara asked me a question that’s been echoing in my ribs ever since: "¿Qué pesa más, la maleta o el corazón?" (What weighs more, the suitcase or the heart?)

I laughed it off then, stealing one of her olives in retaliation, but the truth is, I’ve been turning it over like a stone in my pocket. Because for the first time, my suitcase doesn’t feel heavier. The usual post-trip melancholy—that hollow ache of what now?—is quieter, softer at the edges.

It’s not that I don’t crave movement anymore. The itch to book a one-way ticket to someplace new still hums under my skin. But now, there’s a counterweight: the barista who knows my order at the corner café, the way the evening light hits the stained glass in Sant Pau, Clara’s exasperated "¡Ay, Sofía!" when I’m late (which is always).

This is the evolution I didn’t see coming: belonging isn’t just a place. It’s the people who become your compass.

I used to think relationships were anchors—things that would tether me to one spot, make my wings atrophy. But Lisbon taught me they’re more like lighthouses. Clara’s voice in my headphones as I wandered Alfama didn’t clip my curiosity; it gave me a harbor to return to.

So today, I’ll finally unpack. I’ll press the tram tickets into my journal, a relic of the in-between. And when the editor calls about the new assignment, I’ll pitch Barcelona first—not as a compromise, but as a beginning.

Because the heart can carry both: the weight of roots and the weightlessness of wings.

—Sofia