Bachelorette Trip.

After my trip to Bali last year I had a good conversation with my husband about what is happening next in our lives; the usual buy a house, work on getting healthier and do as much as we can to enjoy life, simple! He suggested I shouldn’t travel for a bit to keep our savings growing and all of those things responsible people want to achieve. We also talked about starting a family. I can’t see myself raising kids with anyone besides him, even though I am very private about my relationship, I feel like this is the right space and moment to talk about it. He’s a great man.

To be honest, I always wanted to be a mom. The whole idea seems exciting and I finally came to a point in my life where I feel like I’m ready. During the days of those conversations I went to visit a Doctor, made sure everything in my body was ok, started eating more nutritious meals and worked out as much as possible to make sure my body was ready.

Deep down something made me feel that I needed to do something else before going on this life changing adventure, but I didn’t know what it was.

While all of this was happening in my small world, my mom rescued an elderly dog that was abandoned in a park near to her home in Bogotá. Luckily my favorite uncle decided to adopt him and give him a new home full of love and cuddles. The day my mom went to my uncle’s house to drop off Toby (as he named him) she video called me. I said hi to everyone and we talked a bit. As I was saying bye, my uncle asked casually: –“mamita, cuando va a volver a Colombia?”– (girl, when are you coming back to Colombia?) I stuttered, quickly said I wasn’t sure and hung up.

I thought about my uncle’s words for a bit and realized that ever since my last trip to Colombia I’ve had some poison inside regarding my home country. I understood at that moment that I wasn’t at peace and realized that was the thing I was missing! I couldn’t bear the idea of starting a family when I wasn’t at peace with my own roots. I left Colombia on such bad terms the last time I visited and that affected me deeply. Not long after I started looking for tickets to Colombia, my heart started racing and I thought this was the best opportunity to reunite with my family, have a fun trip by myself and screw around a little bit one last time before putting my focus on becoming a mom.

I’ve never been the kind of woman that asks her partner for permission to do anything. I firmly believe everyone has the freedom to do what they want with their lives, but this time it felt right to consult it with my husband before I bought the tickets. Those who know me are aware of my way of handling life by following my heart and I rarely think things twice (specially when it comes to a trip). He was as usual chill about it and encouraged me to do it. He thought it was a good idea for me to go away for awhile and spend time with the people who mean the most to me.

The next day I called my dad. He’s a kinda busy man and even though I still don’t really understand what he does for a living, I know it is something related to music. He’s always running all over the place doing things for everyone else or arranging business meetings that involve a few drinks and good times. No matter how chaotic dad life is, he always has time to talk to people, that man is too damn good with words. He was driving at the time I called and asked me if everyone was ok or if we could talk later. I quickly said that I had an urgent desire to go to Colombia and without thinking twice he pulled over and gave me all his attention.

He was incredibly happy. He quickly told me to not waste this visit and to bring my mom back to New Zealand once I was there. To be honest, my relationship with my mom growing up was a bit rough, specially during my teenage years, so I thought this was an exceptional occasion to bond with her and show her around my home country.

Once I put together the money for both tickets I sat down and thoroughly checked my best options in GoogleFlights. Excited, I realized this was not only an opportunity to make peace with my home country but also to collect family stories and pictures to share with my future children. I was aware of how much life was going to change and realized it is likely I won’t visit Colombia for a few years. My husband has to work and I understand he wants to go to other places on his vacation. He has spent enough time in Bogotá and the world is too big to keep coming back to the same places. In a way… this felt like a bachelorette party. I don’t think getting married is that much of a big deal, but having a kid is what will connect you with someone for a lifetime. That to me is the real commitment.

I texted my closest friends in Colombia and with a big calendar I organized my activities for every single day. I wanted to see everyone and only had 15 days there. I wanted to make the most out of it, to go crazy and drink with my amigos like we did in the past. I wanted to spend my weekends at the club dancing salsa, merengue or whatever and sharing the joy of being alive with every human I came across.

When I left New Zealand I was happy and ready for this adventure. I just felt like something that needed to be done. The flights were easy and I enjoyed being on my own, it was peaceful. I arrived in Colombia on November 13th at night, seeing my family waiting for me at the airport gave me an incredible feeling. I was right at that place where I swore I’d never come back but slowly I began to feel comfortable. On the way home there was so much traffic, and I was drinking a Cola&Pola which is a mix between beer and soda. It was crazy to me to see so many people around. I live in a small city in New Zealand so being there was overwhelming.

There was only one thing I wanted: an arepa with chorizo. If you don’t know what that is, you should go as soon as possible to a Colombian restaurant to find out what I’m talking about. When we got home my dad took me to a place in the neighborhood to buy one at around 9:00pm. I looked way too happy saying hi to everyone and I devoured the arepa the woman gave me as I told her that was the best thing I’ve eaten in my life. I’m not even exaggerating when I tell you I was almost crying eating in front of her, and I feel like that defined the way my trip ended up being: enjoying the smallest things.

Before the trip my friend AngelaMar told me I should try my best to enjoy this time in Colombia. Her advice was to not compare it with New Zealand and as obvious as it sounds, well… it wasn’t obvious to me last time I visited. But now, my only purpose was to fall in love again with my country and to remember who I was before my journey as a camgirl began.

My first date while I was there was Johan, my best friend at University. He graduated as a psychologist and did a specialization. He shared his story about how he is making around $400 USD a month working for a foundation. That amount was scary for me to hear and we joked about how his life would have gone better if he had become a camboy instead of staying in school. Johan still lives with his mom and supports her in every way he can but besides anything, he keeps his marvelous sense of humor. We talked about the punk music we loved and about the times we followed around the University my crush at a time: another psychology student who was some semesters ahead. Johan and I got very drunk that day and as I was teasing him for wearing what looked like a hairdresser uniform (what he needed to wear for his job at the foundation). In the middle of my favourite restaurant, Johan took off his pants and shirt but don’t worry. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt underneath. After I paid the bill we headed to a bar to see Vanessa, my best friend from highschool.

Vanessa is one of the smartest women I know (she is very hot by the way). She and I became best friends because we were the tallest girls in our class and were always at the back of the line in school. She is the only friend I’ve had in my life I can share clothes with (for real). But we stopped talking when we entered University and reconnected not long ago. Johan was supposed to leave for us to have “girls talk”, but Vanessa asked him to stay. They didn’t know each other but surprisingly they got along quite well.

We drank way too many martinis and I remember it as one of my best nights in Colombia. It was absolutely amazing hearing their failing romance stories and I must confess they were the first people from “real life” I was comfortable enough to share my cam life stories.

Time was ticking so I needed to make the most out of it. In my first blog I mentioned a guy from the block I was dating, well his name is Rubén, he knew I wasn’t happy with him and that’s the reason he broke up with me. He constantly said –“tu destino es ser feliz”- (your destiny is to be happy), but I never knew why he’d say such things. When our relationship began I was getting out of an abusive relationship, I was living a nightmare but he was like an angel sent by heaven to ease my pain. Our relationship didn’t last long but when we broke up he told me he wanted to see me once more, on February 20th, 2020 to have a date and talk about where life took us after almost 8 years. I knew I couldn’t make it on that date so I texted him when I was in Colombia and after many years of not seeing each other we agreed to meet up at the place where our relationship started, a rock bar downtown where we used to go and drink hot wine.

For some reason I wasn’t nervous, the situation was so familiar. I got there before him and started with a glass of wine. I was in total bliss, I have forgotten how much I enjoyed going downtown in Bogotá and how beautiful everything was, I was having a blast by the smallest things, smiling the whole time. Then he got there, we hugged each other and I literally told him every detail of my life since we broke up, for some reason he always encouraged me to talk. The hours passed way too quickly and before I knew my cousin and his girlfriend joined us. We ended up talking about traveling in South America, then the four of us went to buy hot dogs and as quick as that, the night was over. Seeing Rubén after so many years was wonderful. He’s doing very well in life and even though not long ago he got separated from his woman he keeps the same beautiful energy. Talking to him made me feel like I was back in 2010 and for that I’m deeply grateful.

Every day in Colombia was a new adventure, but the most important one was the official opening of the StormPaws foundation which I’ll talk about in the next post, as it’s a long story. But I can tell you it is the most fulfilling thing I’ve done in my entire life.

My happiness was a bit tainted when protests took over the whole country. It wasn’t safe to be outside and all we heard on the news was about blocked roads and violence. I was scared again, but didn’t allowed those feelings to spoil the trip. I spent my days talking to my parents and my brother, I got to visit every single person who saw me growing up on the streets of 20 de Julio. It’s funny to see how some people’s lifes don’t change and they remain the same after fifteen or more years.

The whole time I was there it felt like I was no longer SofiaStorm. I barely talked to any of my online friends and was too consumed by being present with my family and friends. I found at my parents house an old box holding my University books and even some old pans and kitchen items from my old apartment. It felt like picking up little treasures.

At the end of the trip I was feeling rejuvenated. I was so excited to show my mom New Zealand and couldn’t wait to see my online friends again. I felt like I had been away long enough. I left Colombia with a huge smile on my face, I was at peace, suddenly my country was cool again, and my mom was so excited! I’ve never seen her so happy about a trip before. We left Bogotá the 29th of November in the morning. We had a layover in Santiago de Chile and sat down at a restaurant in the airport to have a big steak and two gigantic jars of sangria. After a few hours with both of us tipsy I realized the bachelorette party wasn’t over. Mom and I had so much to catch up with, life was good, we were happy.