A "Caiçara" in the Windy City

Have you seen yourself lately?

Mia didn’t know if it was the exhaustion from sleepless nights, the growing void inside her, or the simple fact that she couldn’t find a single moment to breathe between tasks — but the truth was, she was vanishing from herself.

For brief moments, she had no idea where she had gone. Without realizing it, she’d find herself staring at a plane flying past her 45th-floor window, fixated on the color of a flower petal on her desk, or even just gazing into nothing. Her thoughts would drift into an unknown sea. And when her senses returned — after milliseconds sailing that ocean — she’d feel it dissolve.

This feeling, so vivid and so real, slowly became a certainty in her life. It wasn’t just her thoughts that disappeared into some hidden spectrum of the day — Mia herself was slipping away.

She got lost in calendars and dates… She started to forget birthdays — of her closest friends, her partner, and even her own. Of course, she knew the dates, but she lived to a different rhythm. The 5th was the 15th, and the 23rd was still the 2nd. April felt like December, and November like February. Nothing made sense anymore. It was unusual behavior since she was always there for anyone who asked for help.

Monotony was the one thing Mia didn’t have. She was a mother to two perfect little kids — one almost five, the other two. They’d decided to have them close in age; Mia had carried both pregnancies. Lara couldn’t get pregnant, so it was Mia who took it on.

Lara was incredible with her. Supportive of every one of Mia’s initiatives. Always by her side, trying to take part in everything, even with the constant travel her corporate role demanded. Lara was an executive at a major company. Mia had been, too — until she got pregnant.

The two met at one of those events where people went to see and be seen. Lara thrived in those spaces. Mia endured them. She performed well, but her social battery ran out far too early. Maybe that’s why, after the second pregnancy, she didn’t go back.

In fact, she still doesn’t know if she left the path or if the path quietly shut her out. Everyone is so kind these days, right? So many beautiful words floating around. We get seduced by the melody. We believe in it. It grows so loud in our minds that we stop noticing whether what we’re thinking is even ours.

And nothing Mia thought lately felt like her own. She had no idea how she ended up where she was. Supposedly, she had chosen all of it — but it felt like a betrayal. Betrayed by her own thoughts, by the version of herself she thought she had to be. Mia wanted to see a path forward, but all she saw were crossroads.

At least her children gave her hope. She knew they could be better than she was. Her responsibility was to heal her own wounds so she wouldn’t pass them on. She wanted them to be free from inherited burdens, to build lives with the solid ground beneath their feet and the freedom to fail for their own reasons — not because of old voices haunting them.

Mia had so many voices inside her. And with each passing year, more piled on. There were so many that she couldn’t remember the last time she had heard her own.

Oh, how she longed to hear herself again. To really listen. To tune into her own desires, urges, and purpose — even if it was just a whisper: “Mia, I’m here for you.”

She no longer remembered the sound of her own voice. There was Lara’s. The kids’. Her mother’s. Her grandfather’s. Every former boss. Every ex-boyfriend, girlfriend. Friends. Bullies from school. Now, the moms at school drop off. Every now and then, Mia would scream — especially when she was alone — to quiet all of them.

And for a few seconds, it worked.

It wasn’t always like that. Sometimes, she heard nothing at all. Just a vast emptiness. Not even an echo. And it was between these two worlds that Mia began to disappear.

She gave so much of herself to others. Poured herself into everything and everyone. She wanted so badly for everyone to be okay. People loved being around her. “Mia is such a joy to be with,” they’d say. Everyone wanted her around. She was the one who understood most, helped the most, and held the most. Who wouldn’t want someone like that nearby? Even Mia liked the version of herself that everyone else loved.

No one noticed. She had already accepted how her story would end. In a way, there was even a strange comfort in it. It didn’t hurt — at least not physically. Only her ego. But even that went silent after realizing it had nothing left to say over all the voices inside her.

So she let herself go. She disintegrated, little by little. And it was all so slow that no one saw her fading. Amid her endless tasks, errands, events, and obligations, those tiny vanishing moments expanded until they took over all her time — or, rather, all of her. There was no going back. She had disappeared.

After all, Mia was there for everyone.

She just wasn’t there for herself.