The Place I Most Want to Go Back To
It’s not my favorite, just the place I want to go back to most. Maybe that’s confusing, but I think there can be endless categories that mean something to a person. Everything is made up anyway. And there are so many incredible places and experiences that deserve a title of their own.
I want to go back to a place that feels unfinished to me. It was the first place I really wanted to go. I don’t remember why, this place, like most places for me, just appeared in my head one day. I saw one thing and decided I wanted to go there, and that was that. Like Amsterdam and the tulips and Kyrgyzstan and the horses.
At first, I didn’t have enough money. The flight to Spain was cheaper, so I went there instead. Three years later, I finally made it. I guess it was worth the wait, since it ended up being the place where I was proposed to. And three years earlier, I wasn’t in the right place for it to become what it ended up being for me. I didn’t have the maturity, maybe even the travel maturity, to appreciate Portugal.
When I arrived in Portugal, I landed in Lisbon and swiftly left for smaller cities. I’ve learned through experience, and through my Irish in-laws, that we fly into cities and leave immediately. We like the smaller, slower places with fewer people, more culture, more life. They feel more intimate, like you can breathe, be present, and actually see life… and eat good food. Cities always seem to be bustling with shopping and noise.
My now-husband, then-boyfriend, and I explored Sintra, where he walked for days with a ring in his pocket. We saw romantic buildings, though none felt quite right for him. We ate authentic food, not enough pastéis de nata, and were chased down by police in our pedicab, and then our driver proceeded to yell at the officer in Portuguese.
We took a five-hour bus and walked the beaches of Lagos. The sun was setting, the beach was empty, and that’s where he asked me to marry him.
It was a beautiful moment I’ll never forget. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel the need to go back there, I can feel that moment so deeply, so easily. But the places I’ve never been still feel empty in my mind.
Often, I think of Porto. It feels like the one that got away. I miss the mountainside I never saw and the wine I never drank. I drank wine, of course, just not there. I didn’t drink it in Porto. And I yearn for that experience, to drink that wine and eat a de nata again.
Love always, not your therapist
