You can say I was a peculiar and independent kid as a child. My mom used to say that I never needed her and was pretty self-sufficient from an early age. I even used to talk to the neighbor’s turtle from my balcony and shared my toys with it. One of my biggest passions was music, and I started creating playlists on tape from vinyl and the radio when I was only six years old. I loved drawing and sometimes drew on my walls — my dad didn’t like this part so much. I was always with a broken arm, scraped knees, and band-aids because I risked too much in sports.

I loved creating things and always designed and sewed clothes for my Barbie dolls. I produced full-fledged fashion shows, and the memories of these shows are still captured in photographs. When I was only 13, I learned how to code in HTML to have my blog look exactly how I envisioned, and I helped my mom with her tax forms at 14.

However, as I grew older, I felt pressure to conform to societal norms and be like everyone else. Being myself felt strange, especially living in a small city in southern Brazil where everyone had the same opinions and aspirations and dressed the same. So, I changed everything about myself to feel like I belonged. But it led me nowhere, and I felt like something wasn’t right.

After going through an abusive relationship, I decided to take a leap of faith and fly to another country to live abroad, meet new people, and find myself. It was then I realized that being different was not only okay but also good. I began to find myself again living in Portugal and then Belgium. Finding myself is still an ongoing process, and maybe it’ll never end.

When I moved to the US almost a decade ago, I had to find myself yet again. I didn’t realize the magnitude of moving to another country. I thought the only struggle would be the language barrier, and I thought my English was near perfection. However, I was wrong.

My biggest mistake was trying to be like everyone else. I thought my narrative and communication should show people how I was precisely like colleagues from (insert whatever) internal team. But I wasn’t like them, and I realized that being different was my superpower. It was then that I embraced my uniqueness and realized it was something to celebrate.

This blog page will be my lab as I strive to be a better writer and tell my story to inspire readers — or just myself, that’s fine!