Pura Vida Por Vida

A broken heart. A layoff notice. A birthday. And a ticket to Costa Rica.

By the time my birthday rolled around, life had apparently decided subtlety was overrated.

Earlier that year, I'd walked away from a relationship that had held ten years of my life.

Then came the layoff notice.

And just like that, the life I knew—the relationship, the job, the routines, the plans, all those comfortable assumptions about what came next—felt like they'd been wiped clean.

Oh, and I already had a trip planned.

The responsible thing probably would have been to cancel it.

Save the money. Stay home. Update my résumé. Refresh LinkedIn until somebody hired me.

Instead, I got on the plane.

Was going on vacation knowing I might not have a job three weeks later financially responsible?

Absolutely not.

But I'm a Virgo, and one thing we're gonna do is celebrate.

Besides, I needed this trip.

Not in the cute OMG, I need a vacation kind of way.

I needed space.

I needed to commune with the land. To bare my griefs and my wishes. To sit somewhere beautiful long enough to hear myself again.

And I needed to do it alone.

Because when everything familiar gets stripped away, you're eventually left with one person.

You.

And I needed to remember who she was.

So I Went Back to Costa Rica

This would be my fifth visit to a country I'd fallen hopelessly in love with years before.

But this time, I was headed somewhere I'd never been:

the Caribbean coast.

I planned myself a little Eat, Pray, Love solo birthday adventure, rented a car and decided to take the long way there.

And somewhere along that road, the trip became something I hadn't planned.

There were waterfalls.

Offerings.

Rainy nights deep in the jungle.

A few unexpected teachers.

One long drive that broke me open.

A coastline that felt nothing like the Costa Rica I thought I knew.

And one final stop that I'm still not convinced was an accident.

I cried.

I laughed.

I ate very, very well.

I made a few questionable decisions.

I discovered that my personal definition of “roughing it” still requires a cute Airbnb.

And little by little, I felt something in me begin to soften.

Maybe that's what I needed all along.

Not answers.

Not a perfectly mapped-out next chapter.

Just enough space to grieve what was over, celebrate what remained, and remember that uncertainty didn't mean my life had stopped being mine.

I had no idea what was waiting for me on the road ahead.

For once, I didn't need to.

I just needed to keep going.

Because this isn't really a story about a breakup.

Or a layoff.

And it definitely isn't just another Costa Rica travel guide.

It's about what happened when the life I knew disappeared...

and I went anyway.

Welcome to Pura Vida Por Vida.

We're starting in San José—with one rental car, a 26th-floor Airbnb, and a little shot I now believe should be mandatory upon entry into Costa Rica.

Continue → Diary 01: Just Me & San José

Pura vida por vida. 🌴