Hello my dear friend,

I hope that you are doing well and that receiving this in your mailbox and taking the time to sit down and read this letter is making your day a little brighter. It definitely is bringing a smile to my face and a sense of peace as I sit down to write this. I have had so much to do at work lately, so taking some time for this club feels like a breath of fresh air.

I realized that last month I didn't tell you much about what I have been up to. I feel like, in a way, I did and in a way, I didn't. So this time, I want to give you a little update. I want to keep it simple but, at the same time, very personal. There is quite a lot going on in my life and in my mind at the moment, and I feel like it has been that way since the middle of the year.

I have met some new people here while going on walks with Taco. I have learned that it is so much easier to make friends when you have a friendly dog who is always walking around with you and wagging his tail at strangers. Taco is so friendly that he has somehow managed to get construction workers to give him salami and bananas on different walks and on different days! Now he believes everyone on the street has something to offer him, and even though it is cute, it can also be a little annoying when people are not interested at all in him hahah. People with other dogs almost always end up starting a conversation with me, and a couple of them have now become friends whom I am starting to meet more often. And even though I do feel more and more settled in this new city and in the new routines I am building, I am still having some ups and downs.

I am usually a very positive person, someone who likes to focus on the good things, and this has always helped me adapt to new places and meet new people. Lately, however, I have also been allowing myself to acknowledge the not-so-good things. The things that make me uncomfortable, angry or sad. I have been sitting down with my new journal and taking the time to put all my feelings on paper, without any prompts or a clear direction. I really just sit down to "dump" all my thoughts onto the pages. And this practice has helped me so much. It has helped me understand myself better, recognise what I am feeling and reflect on where I have been, where I am now and where I want to go. It is okay to sometimes feel a little lost, and it is okay to question things. But I think the most important part is to take a step back and breathe. To put in the work to understand ourselves, recognise the things we want to change and take little steps towards becoming the people we want to be.

Something that has been on my mind these last days, and actually for the past couple of months, is self-love. That is what is written (in Spanish) on the journal page I illustrated for this month's postcard: "These days I have been thinking a lot about self-love and how important it is to love and listen to yourself."

And this has been on my mind for many different reasons. Right now, I find myself thinking a lot about something people told me after the breakup I went through, and something they still tell me. People have said things like, "You are such a good woman, you will surely find someone else very quickly." And it left me thinking, because it almost felt as if that was supposed to be the next step. As if that were the expectation, what I should do or, even more importantly, what I should WANT... When in reality, I am really enjoying my own company. I am enjoying having my own space, getting back to my routines and also building new ones, spending time with myself and sitting down with my own thoughts (yes, even when they are sometimes uncomfortable). I am enjoying having the time to think about who I am and who I want to become.

I know I keep coming back to this idea of “who I want to become”, but it is because it is something I genuinely spend a lot of time journaling about. I write about the kind of woman I want to be, the kind of woman I am becoming and the things I want to bring into my life. And I can only encourage you to do the same. I think we sometimes spend so much time thinking about the people we want to have in our lives, the things we want to achieve and the places we want to go, that we forget to check in with ourselves. How are we treating ourselves? Are we listening to what we need, to what we feel? Are we making time for the things that make us happy? Are we just doing things because we are expected to?

And perhaps that is something I want to leave you with this month. Take some time for yourself. Make yourself a nice cup of coffee or tea, open your journal and write whatever comes to mind. You don't need to have the right words, a plan or even an answer to everything. Just give yourself the space to listen. I really want to encourage you to do it on a piece of paper because it really makes a difference.

I will keep journaling, I will keep creating when I feel like it because I enjoy it and not because I need it for something, I will keep preparing my coffee and going on walks with Taco, I will keep doing these little big things that fill my cup!

I hope you enjoy this month's illustration and that it reminds you to slow down and think about yourself. 

I can't wait to write to you again! Until next month's Cartita.

With love,

Mercy