Echoes by Dana

Unchained. Unmasked. Unfiltered. Unapologetically me.

Author: Echoes by Dana

  • I am More Than a Place on the Map

    It usually comes early.

    Not hello early, but close enough to make you suspicious: “Where are you from?”

    There it is. The question every immigrant knows, recognizes, and, depending on the day, either answers politely or mentally files under emotional rollercoaster I did not sign up for.

    When I first moved abroad, I didn’t mind it. Actually, I wore it like a badge. I was interesting. Exotic, even.

    I would answer with enthusiasm. Smile. Add a little backstory. Sprinkle in a fun fact or two, like a walking Wikipedia page of my own existence.

    But something shifts over time. Maybe it’s the repetition. Maybe it’s the subtle pause after you answer, like they’re recalibrating who you are now that they’ve placed you on the mental map.

    Or maybe it’s just exhaustion from realizing that, somehow, your entire identity has been reduced to a geographical fun fact.

    “Where are you from?

    I don’t know… today?

    Emotionally? Legally? Spiritually?“

    Because here’s the thing: when you live long enough outside your birth country, you stop belonging neatly anywhere.

    You become a mix. A strange, beautiful cocktail of languages, habits, humor, and supermarket preferences. You say “sorry” too much in one language, swear fluently in another, and dream in subtitles.

    And yet, none of that fits into the neat little box the question is trying to check.

    What I sometimes wish, quietly, politely, while smiling on the outside, is that people would ask something else first. Like:

    “What makes you laugh?”

    “What do you do on a Sunday morning?”

    “Do you take your coffee with milk?”

    Let me be a person before I become a country.

    Because when you ask me where I’m from too soon, it feels like you’re trying to understand me through a shortcut. And I get it, we all love shortcuts.

    But humans aren’t Google Maps. We’re more like those badly folded travel brochures, creased, layered, a bit confusing, and missing a few corners. Of course, I still answer the question. I always do. Sometimes with humor. Sometimes with a little less detail. Sometimes with just enough information to satisfy curiosity without opening the full documentary.

    And occasionally, on the rare, magical days, I meet people who don’t ask at all. They just talk to me. Laugh with me. Get to know me in that slow, organic, beautifully human way. And somewhere between the second coffee and an unexpected shared joke, the question fades away. Not because it doesn’t matter…but because I start to matter more.

    So yes, I will tell you where I’m from.

    Just… maybe not in the first five minutes. Let me arrive first. Get to know me fitst.

    Then you can ask where I’ve been.

  • Perimenopause & the Art of Forgetting Everything

     It’s Sunday morning.

    That sacred illusion of calm.

    I’ve done it all, breakfast prepared, the cat fed, the dog fed, and finally… finally… I made myself a proper cup of coffee.

    Not just any coffee.

    The coffee. The one I’ve been craving since Friday evening like a woman stranded in the desert fantasising about espresso instead of water.

    I place everything neatly: food on the table, supplements lined up like obedient little soldiers guarding the food. I move with purpose. With grace. With the quiet confidence of a woman who has her life together.

    I finish organizing.

    And then I look for my coffee.

    It’s not next to the food.

    Not next to the supplements cupboard.

    Not at the coffee machine.

    Not on the kitchen counter.

    Not… anywhere.

    Now, this is not an isolated incident. This is a lifestyle. A personality trait. A neurological escape room I didn’t sign up for.

    Perimenopause, they say gently. Hormones going wild, they whisper.

    I call it:

    “early-access Alzheimer’s, beta version.”

    You walk into a room and forget why.

    You ask a question, receive an answer, and five minutes later … gone, erased from your brain. Evaporated. Spiritually released into the universe.

    But the coffee… the coffee was real. I remember every detail. The sound of the machine, the smell, the cup in my hand. I didn’t leave the kitchen. I know I didn’t leave the kitchen.

    At this point, I engage my husband in what can only be described as a domestic crime investigation.

    “Did you take my coffee?”

    “Did I actually make a coffee?”

    The audacity.

    “Yes, I made it. I remember making it. I experienced it emotionally.”

    We begin searching. Together. United. Confused.

    We check the counter. The machine. The table.

    I check the fridge, because at this stage, anything is possible. Maybe I’m refrigerating coffee now. Maybe I’m evolving.

    Five minutes pass.

    Five long, existential minutes.

    And then…

    There it is.

    My coffee.

    Hidden in plain sight, behind the fruit basket. Like it had something to hide. Like it knew what it did.

    I retrieve it. Slightly colder. Still mine.

    I sit down. 

    And this, this right here, is a fragment of my life in perimenopause.

    Some days I lose my coffee.

    Some days I lose my train of thought mid-sentence.

    But somehow, I’ve learned to lose things without losing myself.

    Because in between the chaos, the forgotten thoughts, and the misplaced cups…

    there’s still laughter, still warmth, still a quiet kind of joy that sits with me at the table.

    And when I finally find my coffee,  slightly cold, but still mine,

    I remember that life doesn’t have to be perfect to be deeply, deliciously good.