Distance That Heals
April 21, 2026
Writer: Aleida Fernandez
Editors: Rena Geula & Ava Malkin
Photo: Pinterest
In the fall of 2025, my world turned upside down. One moment, everything felt steady and predictable, and the next, it wasn’t. I experienced a loss in my family that reshaped my life in an instant. It was the kind of moment that divides time into a clear before and after. Suddenly, I understood how fragile everything is. My life changed without warning, and the world I knew no longer felt the same. However, one thing was clear for me: I had to learn how to move through it differently and keep going.
In the months that followed, everything felt heavier. My simple routines became harder, and I found myself constantly aware of how much can shift in a single second. Although moving miles away from my family after going through something so traumatic made me feel uneasy at times, like I was always waiting for something bad to happen again, it was also the one thing that kept me going. Going abroad and moving to a new city, something I had wanted for so long, gave me a reason to get out of bed in the morning when everything else felt uncertain.
A few months later, I arrived in Madrid. At first, I thought just the location change would suffice in changing my life. But almost immediately, something felt different. I felt so free. It was like stepping into a blank slate, and an opportunity to start rebuilding my life was being handed to me. I began to prioritize the things that made me feel like myself again. I made plans, I socialized, I explored. I invested time in myself and in the things that make me feel good, like going to pilates classes and trying out a new restaurant every week. And slowly, I started feeling motivated and in control of my feelings. Letting go of relationships that no longer served me, something I don’t think I would have had the courage to do if I had stayed in the same environment, surrounded by the same patterns, stuck in my comfort zone. Reshaping my habits, my priorities, and the way I show up for myself in my grief process. Maybe a therapist would call this avoidance. But I don’t see it that way. I see it as choosing myself.
That is not to say it made all my problems go away. They were still there, and I felt them every day in different ways. But being in Madrid placed me in an environment that gently pushed me toward something I had not felt in a while — the desire to be happy again. It challenged me to move forward and not to let what I had gone through define every part of me. And in doing so, it showed me that I was still capable of joy. That even after everything, I could still die of laughter and have fun. I learned that emotions can coexist, as carrying grief and feeling happiness are not mutually exclusive.
