But there's something about the simplicity of that world that's gone now, and sometimes I feel the loss of it so deeply that it surprises me. 💚

In the village, things made sense. Your purpose was clear. Your relationships were rooted in real necessity and real time together. You knew your place in the community. Life was hard, but it wasn't confusing. Now I'm in a world where everything moves so fast, where people are constantly reinventing themselves, where nothing feels stable or real anymore. And I'm good at it—I've adapted—but I think part of me is still mourning what I left behind. 🌾

The people around me now don't understand this. They hear "rural background" and they hear "poor" or "limited" or "backward." But they don't understand what's actually been lost. The loss of knowing everyone. The loss of work that produces something tangible. The loss of a community that held you whether you were useful or not. You were just part of it. You belonged. 💛

What do I do with this grief when the world celebrates where I've come to? Do I just swallow it and pretend the past means nothing? Or do I honor it while still moving forward? I'm learning to do the second one. But it hurts. 🌙