A group photo of Jacinta with her siblings and their partners at her mom's 70th birthday celebration. Everyone is dressed in black and metallic tones, standing closely together and smiling in front of a decorated backdrop. — My older siblings and their partners, my younger sibling, me, and mom celebrating my mom’s 70th. And 70 where?!

Same love. Different math.

I clocked it immediately. Not in a dramatic way. Not in a “somebody call my therapist” way. Just… whoa. That’s a lot.

JFK was my first reminder that I haven’t been living in the States for a minute. The guns. Big ones. Everywhere. The kind you don’t clock until you’ve stopped seeing them for a while. The kind my body had learned to normalize once, without my consent.

I used to move through that without thinking. Or maybe I did think and I just got used to swallowing it so fast it didn’t count as a thought. Either way, I felt it. Immediately.

And once your body clocks something like that, it doesn’t politely unsee it just because your mind wants to keep the itinerary moving.

Landing back in the States did that to me in a few small, quiet ways. Nothing dramatic. Just little moments where I caught myself thinking, huh… I forgot this part.

A note before I go any further

Before I go any further, I want to name the moment we’re in.

For a lot of us, especially Black women, the weight right now isn’t abstract. It’s in our group chats. In our families. In the way we move through our days with a little more vigilance, a little more grief, a little more anger we don’t always have language for.

What’s happening in the United States doesn’t stay on the news. It lives in our bodies. It shapes how safe we feel, how tired we are, how much we’re carrying even when we’re trying to rest.

I’m not living in the States right now. But I’m still writing in relationship to that reality and my body remembers it clearly.

Screenshot of an Uber rid from Louis Armstrong International Airport to Westwego, Louisiana, showing fares between approximately $65 and $75 for a short evening trip. — Same distance. Different math.

Being Home

Then I got home.

I felt it the way I always do when I land in New Orleans. The same way my body now registers Lisbon. Something familiar clicks into place before my thoughts catch up.

This time, getting from the airport to Westwego meant an Uber. My brother’s truck was in the shop. My sister was out with my niece. That girl’s social calendar stays booked. And my mom wasn’t driving to the airport at night.

The ride was almost seventy dollars. Another quiet reminder of where I was. In Lisbon, that same distance would’ve cost me less than ten euros. It wasn’t lost on me.

Being back came with that kind of contrast. What moved easily, what cost more, what you had to brace for without realizing you’re bracing.

And then there’s the other side of it. The part that has nothing to do with money or distance at all.

There’s a particular kind of comfort that comes from being around people who don’t need instructions on how to love you. My family is like that. Always has been. Even messy. Even loud. Even emotionally uneven on a good day. Still solid.

I didn’t realize how rare that was until I left for college and learned that not everybody grows up assuming family will show up, close ranks, and move together.

I truly thought everybody’s family rode together. I assumed closeness was normal and that you could count on your people to show up, talk too much, argue too quickly, laugh too hard, and still pull up for you every time.

Turns out… some folks’ families don’t do that. At all.

We have our issues. Plenty of them. But when it counts? We’re there. Period.

So being home is always this mix of aww, I missed y’all and why are we like this? because most people in my family will say exactly what they need to say, immediately. No preface. No warm-up lap. It’s a live show. Every time.

And I’m not an arguer. Never have been. I’m more of a why are we raising our voices, can we breathe kind of person.

Which is hilarious, because when you live alone, the only person you really have to disagree with is yourself and even then, I don’t argue. I just talk to her. Calmly. In the mirror. Like grown women.

So I’d be sitting there watching it all unfold. Who pipes up, who backs down, who decides today is the day they’re standing on business and instead of bracing, I found myself smiling.

Because even when I choose differently, I recognize the spirit. The immediacy. The honesty. The way nothing stays buried long enough to become poisonous.

It’s not chaos. It’s intimacy.

A multi-generational group of Black women dancing joyfully in a line at a family celebration, with elders and younger relatives moving together. — Soul Train Line and the room knew what to do. Look at my Nanaine (New Orleans term for godmother) getting it! Three generations of family!

Everything That Happened

And being home wasn’t just being home, it was full.

My mom turned 70. Which meant a real party, the kind that takes a day to recover from.

The very next day my cousin hosted his first Winter Soulstice Event. I had every intention of going… and had to take the L on that one because your girl was down for the count after the night before.

Then Christmas. And the reindeer games, which I won two out of four reindeer games. And I’ll just say this: cheating was absolutely happening during the other two.

We’ve got a Christmas birthday in the family, so the celebration kept going.

The next day, we went bowling — full family takeover, VIP room, just us.

Then the next day time with my best friends from high school. The ones who know all the versions of me and don’t need updates.

That night, a cousin-in-law’s 50th birthday party.

Then a few quiet days of Stranger Things and not going anywhere.

And finally, a New Year’s Eve party — complete with an engagement.

It was a lot of life stacked back to back. In the best way.

Aerial view of New Orleans from an airplane window, with the Mississippi River winding through the city below and ships visible along the water, seen from above during daylight. — Almost gone.

The City Tried to Keep Me

My flight on January 1 was delayed. And then canceled. So I didn’t leave until January 2. Which felt familiar, because the same thing happened when I moved to Lisbon. My flight out of MSY got canceled and I had to leave the next day.

So yes. In my mind, New Orleans has a little habit of grabbing my sleeve like, not so fast.

I’m not saying the city is sentient. I am saying she has timing.

The silver lining was I got an extra pass through some staples I thought I’d missed. Like the universe handed me a bonus day and said, go on then. Get what you came for.

I Ate Like I Was Still Local

Listen.

I’ve eaten all over the world. In beautiful places. Fancy places. Places people save for. I’ve done the tasting menus. The plates that look like art. The “you’ll remember this forever” meals.

And still, nothing touches New Orleans food. Nothing. Not even close.

The beignets alone? Whew. Though let me be clear: the ones I got were airport Café du Monde, which I do not recommend if you’re not from New Orleans. Shit, even if you are! If you’re going to do it, do it right. Skip that. Go to Loretta’s. You won’t regret it.

I got my eggnog daiquiri with an extra shot of Southern Comfort. Delicious!

An Eggo waffle with butter and cheese melted in the oven. Don’t knock it until you try it. I said what I said.

Hot sausage with cheese on a bun. A shrimp po’boy. Cornbread dressing. Seafood pie. Egg pie. Gumbo. Pigtails. Birthday cake — wedding cake flavor. And so much more.

Everything slapped.

And none of it felt like treating myself. It felt like remembering myself.

New Orleans food isn’t just good. It’s specific. It’s layered. It’s loud. It’s history that learned how to taste like joy. It’s the kind of flavor that makes you sit back mid-bite like… damn. Okay.

Every time I eat like that, I’m reminded: this place still knows exactly how to bring me back to myself in one bite.

A luggage cart at an airport stacked high with multiple large suitcases and bags. The bags are tightly packed, suggesting a long-term move rather than a short trip. A moment of returning with more belongings than before. — Coming back with more of my life this time. Same love. Different math.

What Changed

What changed isn’t my love.

I haven’t lived in New Orleans for a long time. I left for college and built a whole adult life somewhere else. But I never stopped calling it home.

For years, I said if I ever left Atlanta (which side note I didn’t care for AT ALL), I’d come back here. That was the plan. The anchor. The story I told myself.

What changed isn’t my love for New Orleans. What changed is my body.

The place that raised me still feeds me, still holds my people, still knows how to bring me back to myself in a single bite. That hasn’t gone anywhere.

But the cost of being in the States, the pace, the vigilance, the way my nervous system stays half-braced , is louder to me now than it used to be.

Racism exists everywhere; I’m not naïve about that. But the way it saturates American life is different. Heavier. Louder. More armed.

And I’m tired.

Not disengaged. Not indifferent. Just tired of fighting every day. That exhaustion doesn’t cancel my love for home. It contextualizes it.

Being back reminded me how deep the love runs and how different the cost feels now. Not worse. Just clearer.

This isn’t about leaving home. It’s about learning that home can live inside you without being where you rest.

New Orleans is still home. I’m just learning that home doesn’t always have to be where you lay your head.

Loving a place doesn’t obligate you to build your life there. And choosing ease doesn’t mean you’re rejecting where you come from.

Maybe New Orleans was trying to hold onto me with that canceled flight. Or maybe she was just reminding me what she gives and what she asks.

Either way, I heard her. And I heard my body too.

This is what freedom has been asking of me lately, not more movement, but more honesty about where I can rest.

Pause

If you feel like commenting, keep it simple:

What part hit you — the love, the cost, or the in-between?

(And if words feel like too much, one word for the season you’re in is enough.)

With deep love and gratitude,

— JW