How to Bogotá and Me in 2023
Well, it’s been nearly 4 years.
When I arrived back in Bogotá last December, I thought about starting to blog again, but thought I needed to do a long post to bring people up to date with everything that’s happened since I last posted.
It’s been a lot. So I procrastinated, even though I felt I did want to write on here again.
This morning, I decided I’m just going to post a brief timeline that tells you all you need to know:
November 2019 – Javi and I moved to Barcelona.
March 2020 – 7 weeks strict lockdown. No exercise allowed.
July 2020 – Javi decided to take a humanitarian flight from Spain to Colombia to be closer to his family. I stayed in Barcelona.
October 2020 – Javi decided not to return to Spain. I returned to London to be with my parents.
February 2021 – My mum, who had been living with multiple myeloma (cancer of the blood plasma) since 2015, relapsed. She was admitted to hospital, where she remained for 6 weeks. She had to be kept in isolation because her white blood cells were zero and she wasn’t allowed any visitors because of you-know-what. We were only allowed to take her outside three times.
April 2021 – Mum returned home.
May 2021 – Javi gets vaccinated in Colombia and applies for a visa to come to the UK.
May 2021 – Mum was in increasingly more pain and it became clear that she wasn’t responding well to the latest treatment. I did my best to care for her at home.
June 2021 – Mum was admitted to St Christopher’s Hospice in southeast London for pain management for 3 weeks. She returned home for 2 weeks and my sister and I and Mum’s carers cared for her at home before briefly returning her to the hospice.
3rd July 2021 – Mum died at St Christopher’s Hospice.
26th July 2021 – Mum’s funeral.
October 2021 – Javi got his visa but due to family issues remained in Colombia for a few more months.
January 2022 – Javi arrived in London.
December 2022 – We travelled to Colombia, planning to stay for 5 months. Once we got here, we both realised we didn’t want to continue living in London.
March 2023 – Javi and I decided to separate.
April 2023 – I moved to Chapinero Alto, where we were living in 2014-2015.
June 2023 – An amazing trip to La Guajira and Valledupar with my BFF costeña Johanna
July 2023 – Single and happy in Bogotá.
I think that covers the key events of the last four years.
I’m now happy and settled in Chapinero Alto neighbourhood. I realised once I left London that continuing to live in an environment that I associated with a lot of painful memories linked to my mum’s illness and death had been detrimental to my mental health and meant I was continuing to suffer a lot from my grief. It also didn’t help that Javi was not happy living in London so I was constantly worrying about him. All of this affected and changed our relationship with each other.
I recently read a quote about grief and how it can change us in a book I’m reading. This strongly resonated with me:
“Grief shatters…and then you put yourself back together, piece by piece, you wake up one day and realise that you have been completely reassembled.
You are whole again, and strong, but you are suddenly a new shape, a new size.
…When that kind of transformation happens, it becomes impossible to fit into your old conversations or relationships or patterns or thoughts or life anymore.
You are like a snake trying to fit back into old, dead skin or a butterfly trying to crawl back into its cocoon…
…Sometimes to live again, we have to let ourselves die completely.
We have to let ourselves become completely, utterly, new.”
Untamed, Glennon Doyle
It took me nearly two years to die completely. Colombia has revived me, helped me give birth to myself again, ready to begin the next chapter of my life.
It reminds me of a quote from One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez:
‘Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them… life obliges them to give birth to themselves over and over again.’
So this is me (and How to Bogotá) in 2023; refreshed, revived, reborn.
Welcome Back. Sorry about your Mum. I lost my Dad to cancer 5 years ago but was not the primary cater so it was easier. I have been to Bogotá a couple of times since you left primarily on a research project but staying at or around the Universidad los Andes. The area was frankly scary particularly as I often come back from work after dark. I really loved the time I spent in Chapinero Alto I found the time and options much nicer. I look forward to your blog and hope to be back again.
Thanks Stephen, I’m also sorry to hear about your dad. Yes, that area of the centre can be a bit sketchy at night. I never feel unsafe in this part of Chapinero Alto 🙂 I hope you get the opportunity to return to Bogotá!
I am happy to see how to Bogotá back in action. Thank you for posting again Naomi. We have a pending dinner 🥺.
Good to hear from you. I remember contacting you more than once. In 2020, when the pandemic, and separation, started and again more recently when I was planning to go to Bogota, ie, Usaquen. Been back twice now. I was grateful that you replied with advice on both those occasions. What a sad story you have related. This Covid has been associated so much separation and change for so many. I am sorry to read all of what has been happening to you. Thank you for relating this. And I know the hospice you mention.