[Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4]

I continued to spend time with the church group.

I wanted so badly to tell someone, anyone, about my heartbreak. But I kept quiet. Who would care? Everyone liked this guy.

He was so handsome, charismatic, had a cool job, and was a “good Christian man,” the one my parents may have wanted me to marry, except it turns out that not all “good Christian men” are good Christians.

What hurt me the most wasn’t even the fact that I felt like I was led on. It was where this all happened—at a place I once felt was emotionally safe.

I would have expected this behavior from a guy I would’ve met at the club. Not a guy I’d met at church—after months of giving the church another chance. The storyline mimicked the hypocrisy that had turned me away from the church all those years.

In the midst of the emotional carnage, there was a silver lining.

For one, I had the chance to visit Italy on a 30-euro round trip right before Omicron hit the fan.

(Technically, this was before all of this sadness had even happened, but a silver lining is a silver lining.)

I also was offered an opportunity to be a teacher trainer and mentor, an opportunity that would continue to shape my life over the next few years.

My school agreed to let me stay with them another year. This guaranteed me another year in Spain—and another year in Gran Canaria.

And finally, the guy who broke my heart left Spain a few months later—just like he said he would. He had a good-bye party with my friends.

I didn’t attend.

But I did draft and send a message at midnight.

It was eloquent yet savage; vulnerable yet bold. My message concluded with: “Someday, I’ll find someone who will be the man that you could never be.”

Four things occurred, falling into place like dominoes:

One, I finally got covid.

Three, my parents visited me during spring break (before I got covid). I never thought my parents would visit me. They never visited me when I lived in Colombia, and Colombia is in the same time zone as Michigan six months out of the year. There was no way they’d cross the ocean to see me. But they did.

Three, I found a few cheap flights. As long as I picked horribly early and inconvenient flight times, stayed in hostels, and bought a sandwich and a one-euro baguette that would last me the whole day, I could live it up as my backpacking self for a few days in a place I’d never been to before. It was such joyous fun.

Four, I got accepted into a Master’s degree program. It was online, so I’d get to do it while living in the Canary Islands.

The silver lining shone bright under the Canarian sun.

And then burnout happened.

After the past two years of teaching as early as 6am, teaching as late as 2am to make more money, years of running on 5 hours of sleep per night, living paycheck to paycheck, visa renewals, betrayal, heartbreak, solitude, and a pandemic, my body and mind were running low on energy and motivation.

I found it so hard to get out of bed—not only mentally, but physically. My body felt like it was made of rocks, and I was trying to swim to the surface, but gravity kept pulling me down. My brain felt like it had been running a marathon over the past two years, and wanted to badly to stop.

But I couldn’t stop.

I had to keep working. I had to pay rent for my apartment, and now, tuition for a Master’s degree.

On top of that, my grandmother passed away.

My grandmother’s passing felt like we’d lost the Queen of England. I knew my grandmother and the Queen of England were human, but I didn’t believe the two most powerful matriarchs that had ever been could die. But they did.

What’s strange is that, my grandmother and my friend who passed away a few months prior shared the same birthday.

The night before her passing, I was walking along the beach, wondering if I was a bad granddaughter for not being there with her.

And then, I felt a message that seemed to come from the heavens. I felt as if someone looked at me, sighed, and then said, in a voice that felt like both youth and wisdom, “Do whatever you need to do to find your peace in this world.”

I don’t know what I believe in anymore, but I do feel that maybe, that night, my grandmother’s spirit had somehow traveled to Gran Canaria to be with me, to walk along the beach and see what I could see every day, to send me that message.

The next day, I got a phone call with news that my grandmother had passed.

Ten minutes later, I had to put on a smile to teach a sales lesson for a potential client.

“Hi! What’s your name?” I asked, all smiles and thumbs up.

I don’t think the client even knew that I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

As my second year in the Canary Islands was about to begin, along with my fourth year in Spain, I wondered how I was going to manage working myself to the bone for another rotation around the sun. I wanted so desperately to rest, to sleep for a luxurious 8 hours, but I couldn’t stop. I needed the money so I could pay for my rent and groceries. I needed people at my school to like me and say I was doing a good job so I could renew my visa. And I needed success, because if anyone back in the United States had known how much I’d been struggling, they’d hit me with an “I told you so.” And I needed status and beauty, because if I put myself on a pedestal that was high enough, I would always have the upper hand, and no man could ever break my heart again. My mind circled like a hamster wheel on thoughts of money, recognition, approval, success, status, beauty, more, more, more, more, more.

It was sink or swim.