An Unpacked Suitcase is a Choice, Too

On returning to writing after seven months

“EUA made you sick, MX was the cure.”

I swayed in a hammock, tucked in the corner of a shared rooftop in Mexico. It had been three months since I’d ended my sabbatical, and I needed to return. I’d never been to Mexico, but this – this felt familiar. The shared bathrooms, the instant friendships, the quiet exhilaration of being someplace so unfamiliar.

One hand shielded my face from the Oaxacan sun, the other texted back a friend from Brazil. I rushed through all the unanswered messages, laughed at the Instagram reels he’d sent over. I told him I was spending January in Mexico, the sun was shining, and I’m sorry it had taken so long to respond.

“EUA (USA) made you sick, MX (Mexico) was the cure,” he joked. I smiled, because it felt easy to believe. My return to Seattle had flattened me; the US felt dull. He had noticed, and now I noticed, too. But in Mexico, I met who I had become while abroad. Everything looked glittery, and jokes flowed easier.

But I still couldn’t write.

Living my best life in Oaxaca, Mexico (but still not writing)

I had returned to Seattle months ago, pretending to rebuild. I passed by bars I remembered from last decade, set up artificial sunlight for cloudy afternoons. Most weeks, I would tell myself: this is the week I’ll write. As soon as I unpack this box. As soon as I get to know my boss. As soon as I find the right grocery store. As soon as I...

I pleaded with my brain to hold on to all of the essays and opinions and observations that were spilling out of me. I thought about the writing community I had made, about how I missed their thoughts and their words and I wanted to read what they were writing, too. I would poke my head in. I would return. I was just one weekend away. I just needed a little more time.

Back in Oaxaca, I sat again in the hammock. I swayed, and I swayed, and I wondered: In Oaxaca, will I write? And more importantly, why haven’t I been able to write since I returned?

Was it because of Sylvia Plath’s fig tree?

I read The Bell Jar years ago, and while I never loved it as much as everyone else did, I remembered the fig tree. Esther sees a life full of choices - love, career, adventure, fame - and freezes. She waits too long, and the figs rot.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree … One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America … I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

– Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

My travels were a long, indulgent gaze at this tree. I reached for the figs. I imagined their flavor. I held them for a moment. But I never picked.

I reached first for the life of a traveler – South America, then Europe, then Asia. At some point, I became a writer. In Nepal, I wondered if I should join a Buddhist monastery. In Brazil, I met someone who walked to the beach every day and told me, “This is what life should be.” In Bulgaria, I applied to jobs in Seattle, Spain, Istanbul, Dubai. I kept reaching.

Eventually, I picked a fig. But it wasn't one of the exotic, tempting figs whose flavor I had dreamt of. It was a fig that tasted familiar, one I’d eaten before. And as I settled into my life in Seattle, I noticed all the other figs starting to wrinkle.

And so, what do I write? Which figs do I write about?

I would return to that hammock in Oaxaca again and again, breathless and inspired, but I would never write. I would spend a month in Oaxaca, and then fly to Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, and Brazil… looking to reunite with who I was when I had stood in front of the fig tree.

And in moments, the version of me that I was looking for met me there. We went together to the mountains of Mexico, where my friends and I sat in the dirt, ate lollipops and magic mushrooms, and watched the sunset. We picked out produce in the market, prepping for the meals we’d make alongside others in our beautiful, rooftop kitchen. We sang together – at the top of our lungs – in the streets of Brazil, and hugged friends who had only met the version of us that we loved. We had so much to ask, and so much to say.

But in other moments, she waved from afar. She peeked over my shoulder as I made notes in my phone, promising myself that I’d write them out next week. She gave me the side eye when I decided to leave Brazil sooner than I had planned, because proving myself in a new job became more important. She watched with concern as I returned to Seattle again, going on friend dates and date dates and wondering why I couldn’t connect with anyone in the ways that I had become used to.

I didn’t know who I was. Was I her? Was I not? Was I someone wholly new, and I hadn’t figured her out yet? And so, I abandoned Very Lost, and the community I had built here. Writing forces you to look at yourself, and I never felt brave enough to look at myself with conviction. I didn’t have a story that felt meaningful, because I had struggled to find meaning.

Because my greatest fear had always been: what if there was no meaning?

I was afraid I’d chosen wrong. That I’d wasted time abroad. That I’d come home too changed to belong, or not changed enough to stay gone. Will looking too closely only make me miss a story that has ended?

So, I couldn’t write. I let the memories fade, and then felt guilty about them fading. And as the weeks turned into months, I felt too guilty to return here. Maybe I wasn’t a writer anymore. Maybe that story had ended, too.

I thought I would write in Brazil, in Washington D.C., in Mexico, but I’m writing this from home – in Seattle – staring at a half-unpacked suitcase that I trip over when I walk to the kitchen. Because an unpacked suitcase is a choice too, isn’t it? It’s the end of a story.

And even though I’m not ready for that ending, I’m no longer one week away. I’m here, sitting with who I was.

Thanks for reading Very Lost! If you’re new here, check out some of my most popular essays: on climbing a mountain in Nepal, why some strangers are kind, my Eritrean heritage, and saying goodbye.

Very Lost is about my travel sabbatical — and now, about returning home. Subscribe to read monthly-ish essays on travel, identity, and in-betweenness.