**The Unseen Frame**

Barcelona, 09:05 AM

Jet lag clings to my bones like a second skin. Twenty-four hours since I stepped off the plane from Istanbul, and my apartment still smells faintly of Turkish coffee and the rosemary sprig I tucked into my journal. The photos from my trip are downloaded, but I haven’t looked at them yet.

This is new for me. The Sofia of a month ago would have rushed to edit, to curate, to define the experience before the suitcase was even unpacked. But the city by the Bosphorus left me with an unexpected souvenir: patience.

I woke this morning to Barcelona’s light—different from Istanbul’s honeyed glow, sharper, filtered through the jacaranda trees outside my window. Instead of reaching for my camera, I reached for my notebook. The words came slowly, like a language I’m relearning.

What am I trying to capture, really?

The photos will wait. Right now, I’m sitting with the absence of them—the moments that never made it to film. The way Aylin hummed under her breath while brewing çay. The exact shade of the little girl’s laughter when I showed her the photo of her kumpir-stained grin. The weight of the old woman’s hand on my shoulder as she whispered “yavaş.”

Marcos texts: “¿Ya extrañas el caos?” Do you miss the chaos yet? I smile. What I miss isn’t the chaos, but the way Istanbul made me surrender to it. The way it taught me that the most important frames are often the ones you don’t take.

Growth, I’m realizing, isn’t just about accumulating experiences. It’s about resisting the urge to package them too soon.

Later, I’ll open the files. Later, I’ll sift through the light and shadow. But for now, I’m letting the memories breathe.

—Sofia