THE HARDEST DECISION OF MY LIFE

I've been told multiple times that when a person turns 27, something happens in their brain (or psyche) where something changes. Like a lightbulb that switches and makes your perspective change, or something like that. I never really believed in that until now, just weeks away from my 27th birthday, I recently decided to visit my family in Madrid where they've been living at for two years. I had never been to Spain since I've been busy studying and working in Los Angeles since the age of 18. But upon arrival, I fell in love with it. The architecture, the culture, the people, the way the arts are honored and not treated like a cash cow. I got offered the opportunity of a lifetime, which is to move to Madrid, and as blessed as I feel to have the option to move away it would come at great cost: losing the man of my dreams, my boyfriend of two years. When I told him about the offer and how, for a filmmaker, moving to Spain would boost my career enormously, he immediately felt happy and excited for me. But with the thought of losing me to a different continent came a lot of sadness and seeing his bright eyes tearing up while sitting at the edge of my bed, hunched over and his hands hiding inside the pockets of his hoodie, defeated, is an image that will taunt me for quite some time. Being both aware of the damage that distance can create to a relationship, it’s pretty obvious what has to happen once I’ve moved away in a little over a month. As much as I’d love for us to stay together and try to work things out, risking having this beautiful relationship end in bad terms over distance would be more devastating than going our separate ways and honoring this relationship for what it was: the most tender, sweet, respectful and loving relationship I have ever been in. I’m not sure if by writing this I’m searching for advice, answers or if it’s just to pour my feelings on paper as a form of therapy, but there’s one thing I do know and it’s that no matter what is said or done, the next few weeks my life are going to be the hardest ones I’ve lived.