I’m back and more tired than ever
Am I taking holidays wrong? Because I'm always more tired, not less, by the end of them.
Those of you that live abroad, or even that live far from your families, know that a visit to spend time with loved ones is never relaxing. It’s a gauntlet of energy.
You get off a long flight you slept little on and immediately have to trick yourself into being wide awake. You can’t go to sleep first or be slow in conversations. You traveled all this way for just a week and you have to make the most of it.
You don’t take any personal time but instead fill it with catching up, asking questions, answering their own, and digging deeper into all of those surface level conversations that kept you satiated throughout the year.
And then, in our case, you wrap up time with one family and go do the exact same with the other one.
(Raf and I don’t make it over to the side of the Americas often, so when we do, we try and see both of our families. Really, they don’t live so near with my family in Nashville and his in Bogota but, this time, my fam helped out and met us in Curaçao for the holidays).
Part of the trip to Bogota included 5 days in the Colombian Amazon - because 2 trips just wasn’t enough apparently. 11 years ago I lived in the Peruvian Amazon and truly couldn’t wait to get back. The jungle and all it’s bugs, plants, and animals is one of my happy places.
On one of our treks, our local guide took us through a small community. This community sits next to the ecolodge we had booked and is where the guide lives. While walking around, Raf’s mom asked if there were any local food or drinks we could sample.
Right on cue, we stumbled across a group of women setting up for a birthday party the following day. Next to them they had a water cooler of sorts that the guide said held the local fermented yucca drink they consume on special occasions, like birthdays. She offered us some and 3 of us agreed. I didn’t realize until too late that they just had 1 cup that we’d also be drinking from, nor did I see the playful monkey climbing on the women and likely on the water cooler until after my sip.
Not wanting to offend anyone, especially as were the ones who asked for it, we all tried it. We rang out with “numae” (thank you in their local language) to their giggles and moved on.
About 24 hours later, a few small white spots appeared on the back of my throat. I’m anything if not stubborn, so I ignored them and went to bed. The 31st I woke up with more annoyance from the spots but really no true pain, so again I ignored it. All day I rotated between pretending to be fine, throwing up, and pretending to be fine again until about 8pm when I hit a wall.
It was New Year’s Eve and no one wanted me to go to sleep. We finally all agreed I could take a 2 hour nap but then needed to be up and dancing (it’s Colombia after all). I immediately fell into a restless slumber where I remembered the monkey and his smiling little face. In that moment I knew I shared the cup with that monkey. I was sure of it.
So began the joke that I got monkey pox. The white girl just can’t hang (Raf and his mom never got sick even though they also drank from the same cup).
I did get up, put on a dress, and with the medical advice of Raf’s younger brother drank aguardiente with lime to soothe my throat. Jokes on me, it actually did kill some of the spots in there. I danced as much as physically possible and around 2 a.m. was finally allowed to go back to bed.
The next day, we left the jungle and later that night had our long flight back to Italy. The only perk to flying under those conditions is I slept 95% of the way and honestly wasn’t even that uncomfortable in economy - shoutout to Raf for taking the middle seat so I could snuggle up against the window.
Upon arriving home, I slept 15 hours straight and have continued to average about 10 hours a night. I’m pretty sure I’m fine though, right?
Exhaustion and “monkey pox” aside, we did have a great time and we we’re happy to be able to end the year with our families. It’s hard getting such limited time with our loved ones but at the end of the day, we both know we’re right where we’re supposed to be, long flight times and all.
This year is a big one for us. We bought an apartment in Italy that we’ll finally get to move into. The past 13 years I’ve lived abroad and never really knew which country we’d call home next. This purchase is a big shift though as it means putting some roots down and actually “settling in” longer than a year or 2 usually allows for.
We’re excited for what’s ahead and honestly can’t wait to get the keys (things move slowly here and that won’t be until the end of April).
Next week I’ll be back with something on why I live abroad. My reason for leaving tends to get confused with politics, lifestyle, and a sense of running from something, where really the answer is much more simple than that. I’m hoping this will show you that while a move abroad could be the grand master plan, it could be just because you want to.
Later in the month I’ll dig into some reasons moving abroad might be a good call for you, too, and a few more that might mean you should rethink those 2026 goals.
Until then.
xx,
Kat