I remember Mamá’s words striking me like a lightning bolt six years ago: “C has always finished what he started, he’s always been disciplined and good in that way.” She was full of pride for her son (my boyfriend) while I was seen as the opposite, but not by her. They thought that I gave up on things too easily whereas I thought that life was showing them the same message over and over again “wrong direction” but they weren’t listening. I’ve never had a complex with knowing when to quit, as a matter of fact, I’m an expert quitter.
Nobody in their right mind drops out of college but I did because I knew it wasn’t right for me. I was never an academic person: I hate studying things I’m not interested in, I hate revising for exams, I’m terrible at maths and never learned my times tables, I hate memorizing information to vomit onto an exam paper, I hate geography and history and I wanted to cry every time I was asked to open a text book.
I ended up choosing the scientific branch at college because “that’s what smart people do” and “that’s the way to get into better degrees” and the result was that I failed eight out of ten subjects in the first term. At the time I thought I was doing something logical by saying “this isn’t for me” and dropping out. However my parents and family didn’t seem to think the same.
Now that the years have passed and I’m an adult that did actually go to university, I can say that none of those decisions were for me and I was brave and intelligent in knowing when to quit. For some reason people think that once you’ve started something, you can’t decide to simply stop, a.k.a. quit, because that would mean you’re not determined enough, that you give up easily or that you can’t deal with feelings like frustration, but knowing when to quit isn’t an easy choice.
It wasn’t easy for me to decide to not go back to college where all of my friends were. It wasn’t easy for me to break up with my teenage ex who was toxic.
It wasn’t easy for me to decide I was done with university the year before last.
It wasn’t easy for me to walk away from my job.
It wasn’t easy for me to decide that I really can’t organise a weekend retreat this year. It wasn’t easy for me to walk away from the city that saw me flourish into a happy young adult. None of those decisions were easy but they were necessary and sometimes that’s more important than forcing yourself to keep going. Where are you actually heading? What are you hoping to achieve? Is it making you happy? Isn’t life too short? Aren’t we all here to make mistakes, learn from them and change direction?
People aren’t better examples because they stick to things. I don’t believe in suffering for the sake of continuing over being ok with walking away. Mamá was right though, when I met C eight years ago he was a perfectionist and understood everything in the world as a mental puzzle. I was dating someone who I saw as Einstein. He was constantly stimulated by thoughts, ideas, projects and wouldn’t give up on any of them no matter how messy things got. I, on the other hand, was much more of a go with the flow person. I was like a butterfly that fluttered around in the garden from flower to flower while he was more of an ant following a straight line to reach his grand destination, no matter what.
I dropped out of college and then decided to go back a year later in a different city, the same year I met C. When he picked me up after my selectividad (Spanish A-Levels) exams I told him that it was probable I’d failed all of them apart from two, risking my precious future at university, and he almost had a heart attack. He was angry at me for not trying harder at something I hated and really didn’t care much about. The only reason I half-heartedly cared was because every single person around me kept repeating how important it was. In the end I passed some of the exams with a high enough mark and was able to get into a degree I never finished, alas what a surprise. But the even bigger surprise was when C didn’t finish his engineering degree. Mr Einstein-finish-every-task-he-ever-started decided that university wasn’t for him and being an engineer wasn’t either. The ant was transforming into a butterfly and I was proud of him while everyone else put their hands to their head because the straight-A student was dropping out of such a clever person’s degree. They were worried about his future, destined for doom. Meanwhile, I knew that he was about to become the biggest and brightest butterfly I’d ever seen and experience my way of seeing life. I turned out to be right.
The funny thing with quitting is that when time has passed and you’re able to look back on your life like a video in your camera roll, you can start it, stop it, rewind it, zoom in and see that everything along the way happened for a reason. In the moment it feels like the world is going to end and that you’re making the biggest decision of your life with extremely serious consequences (usually thought of as negative) but then the video shows you that everything fell into place almost like perfection. You were just too in the middle of it all to be able to see further ahead.
Life surprises us in strange magical ways and I personally believe that the more flexible we are and the more we surrender to life, the more fun it becomes and the more you grow. Dropping out of college at sixteen didn’t kill me but it did teach me a lot of valuable lessons. Reaching the point I reached with my ex was a very fast crash course in red flags and what not to look for in a partner. Going back to college and trying to be a smart science loving student taught me that my mind works in letters and words, not numbers and formulas. Moving away from mi tierra (my motherland: Andalusia) taught me that I am my own home. Taking an unlimited break from university taught me that I can create my own path and learn new things on my own account. In every single “walk away” decision, I wasn’t actually leaving anything behind, I was changing paths a few degrees which would end up taking me further and further away from who I used to be, that’s all. Everything I walked away from is an arms-length away and I carry each lesson I learned with me. Walking away isn’t a bad thing, a shame or wrong. One of my strongest tools is knowing when to quit and knowing when to quit has taught me that I always know what’s best for me.
My dad didn’t used to reply to my messages about my writing and I actually have no idea what he thought about me saying I was going to be a writer, probably that it was just another phase, but nowadays, three years later and after 136 weeks of non stop POMELO writing, he’s one of my biggest fans and continues to tell everyone about his daughter’s newsletter and how proud he is. He’s seeing me achieve big things but years ago I was a university drop out. I knew it was right for me and now I think he does too.
Don’t ever be afraid to change direction, to give up and search for something new, to put everything on pause while you allow yourself to look for the answers, to experience new things hoping to spark new feelings. Nothing is set in stone or as definite as we’re told it is. Being consistent with something you love is one thing but being consistent with something that you hate and are too scared to walk away from is another. The good thing about throwing in the towel is that you can always pick it back up when it feels right. Nothing is set in stone, remember?
STUFF I WANT TO SHARE ↓
C and I have an online shop called Dimanche Objects and we’ve just made our first ever merch collection. C and I do all of the designing and screen printing ourselves in our mini studio. The clothes are now available for purchase in our online shop here and will be made + shipped at the end of June. We’re doing a pre-sale because we don’t want to have stock, it’s a one time only situation. We hope you love them as much as we do ❤️
I love
and that’s no secret, but I also love her Spanish newsletter called “Aún no se lo he dicho a mi jardín” and her latest piece called “Pavos reales”. Me desarmó con estas palabras:Le quise explicar que hacer el amor no era suficiente. Que las caricias, los besos eternos e incluso la penetración no satisfacían el hambre que yo sentía. Yo con él quería algo más. No hablaba de matrimonio ni de hijos ni de otro compromiso. Hablaba de algo más físicamente.
Y me recordó que a veces cuando quiero mucho mucho mucho a C, me imagino metiéndome dentro de su cuerpo y viviendo dentro de él. Resguardada del mundo pero entre sus brazos, rodeada de su olor, de su protección, de su amor. C siempre se ríe cuando le abrazo todo lo fuerte que puedo y le digo “ojalá pudiera meterme dentro de tu cuerpo” porque no lo entiende, pero Alejandra sí.
I started reading the saga Blackwater, which everyone in Spain is raving about. I had no expectations but I ended up loving the first one. It reminds me of Ozark with weird dark sci-fi vibes, something I wasn’t expecting but was pleasantly surprised by. Also, the covers are beautiful and the books are tiny, win-win.
I’m also in love with Sophie Mackintonsh and have read 2/3 of her books. Blue Ticket, The Water Cure and I just started Cursed Bread. They are women in the wilderness, dystopian vibes novels and they have my whole heart. Go read them, they’re great. Also, if you know more books with this same vibe, please let me know in the comments :)
Why does the past always seem better than the present? Why was life always sweeter and easier when our parents were young? Why do we all remember our childhood as the happiest period? Why do we wish we had been born in another period of history? Why are we all so nostalgic?
killed it with her deep-dive into nostalgia interview called “Remember the good old days” with the author of “Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion” by Agnes Arnold Foster.When we fall in love and decide to share a life with another human 24/7 it can be hard to remember to keep our social circle open and alive. It requires effort and attention because it’s easy to fall into your lover’s arms and slowly distance yourself from the rest of the world.
wrote about her experience in her latest piece called “rediscovering your social-self”.Nobody knows what to do when our someone we care about loses a loved one. Nobody knows what words to use or whether to mention the word “death”. We become paralyzed and try to tread as lightly as possible when in reality death requires us to be as vulnerable and open as possible.
speaks about what things helped her after the sudden death of her baby girl and I thought that it was a beautiful, hard and much needed read. “Practical Resources for Grief; For those who are experiencing loss, and for those who are supporting”See you next week!!!
LOVE, EM.
I have quit many many things. It take so much courage to quit and really stand up for what you believe in. And quitting is not as socially accepted as I think it should be.
Very inspiring