March Tales

March is proving to be a month of changes in my life. Not only is it the month I was born (I’m a Pisces baby if anyone’s interested) but it’s usually a month that brings lots of unknowns.
For example, back in 2019, I started a new job, in 2020 we were hit with our first COVID confinement, and last year I found myself single again.

But let’s get back to March 2024.

The beginning of the month started with me packing my bags for my next destination: Andorra. I had never skied so I decided to join a group of friends and tag along down the slopes. Well, I went down A LOT if I’m being honest. I sucked at skiing and relied on the patience and care of my unofficial teacher, who did everything he could to stop me from falling every five seconds.
Other than my lack of talent, the group was super fun and it was great to spend a week with 12 friends, just relaxing, eating, falling skiing, and partying.

While in Andorra I ended up making a big life decision: I quit my job. I was a CMO at a company where I worked for the last five years. I made great friends, learned a lot about others and myself, and discovered a new side of me. I realised I’m great at managing people, that it is possible to lead with kindness and I witnessed a project going from 8 to 70+ people. Looking back, it was truly an awesome experience that I will cherish forever. However, I just turned 32 and I realised I was feeling too comfortable where I was and felt it was time to take a risk. Quitting a job without having another one on the horizon is pretty scary and anxiety-inducing but it was also an opportunity for me to focus on my future and understand where my strengths lie.

After skiing for a week and making a life-altering decision, it was time to come back to Portugal and reorganise my life. I will not be able to travel as much as I’ve been travelling this year, but I will not stop. In fact, after spending a few days in Braga to celebrate my birthday, I flew to London for a few days. I love London and hadn’t been there for a few years so it was great to be back in one of my favourite cities in Europe. There was time to visit art galleries, go out with friends, eat lots of cookies, and keep on working as I still had some tasks to complete.

Being in London was also great to look back to when I was choosing where to attend college and think about how different my life would have been if I decided to go study there.

Back in Portugal, I started to notice how different my mind works when I’m in Portugal or abroad. In a stressful month like this, I found myself oscillating between spikes of excitement when I was abroad and spikes of anxiety when at home. I’m trying to be better at that but I’ve noticed that I’m much more pessimistic in Braga than in any other part of the globe, so if anyone has some tips to avoid this, I’m all ears.

The end of March came with good news of a new job and a new adventure that I’ll be starting by the end of April. With that in mind, I took the last few days to be with friends, babysit, get new tattoos and travel between Lisbon, Aveiro and Braga. While I stressed, cried, and had some sleepless nights, March was also a month for relaxing, planning new trips, and enjoying some time off to prepare for what’s ahead.

Hopefully, April will come with more certainty but for now, I’m happy to have survived yet another crazy March and can’t wait to live out of a backpack yet another month.