I have met so many people in the last ten years I have been in this cold Nordic country. Some described me as the silent but fierce type but would quickly add never to underestimate my meekness because I bite. I guess that was the hardest part for me when I decided to move away from the capital. How do I come to terms with the expectations I placed on myself from our decision?

Copenhagen is beautiful, but Bornholm is therapeutic and mystical.

There was a push and pull within me that only my closest friends could understand. It was as if moving meant giving up the fight. The fight was fought in several different areas. First, the advocacy work for women and their children, to which I gave the same amount of fervor as being a mother. Then, the struggle to prove that my existence in this country should not be mediocrity, so I gave back to the point of exhaustion. Another thing that I was personally advocating for was breaking the stereotypes placed on Southeast Asian women, to have their stories heard on their own terms, so their truths would not be twisted. Lastly, but burning fiercely like the rest, is migrant representation—or at least a fighting chance for migrants to get into the Danish labor market with assessment based on capacity and not on one’s ethnicity. In my head—my little bubble, if you must—if we can create another way to lift the Filipina identity, we might be able to pave the way for the rest so that they are allowed to be more. I am and will always be firm in my stand that service jobs, cleaning jobs, are never to be frowned upon; these are all respectable jobs. I had been in one before. But this also should not be the be-all and end-all—a prison for those who dare to dream a little bit more.

Before we left the capital, I carried the façade that everything was good and great. But the truth was, I was scared. I had worked with women and isolation, and I was trying to cover all the bases so I was prepared for anything and everything. My husband, with his pure heart and his kind soul, told me, “Babe, take this move as a healing process for you—it is, after all, an adventure.” I smiled and hugged him. He might have taken my actions as an agreement, but in my head, I was preparing for a battle. So I gathered all the intel I needed, created a plan, got counseled by those whose opinions mattered—closest friends and fellow feminists. It was my way to console myself, to ask for forgiveness because it felt like I was giving up. One of them suggested that I watch Brené Brown’s talk on vulnerability to get a shift in my perspective.

It was greatly appreciated.

Brown said in her TEDx presentation that, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change.”

I’m 33 years old. I want plans. I want timelines. I hate vulnerability because, to me, it equates to bad planning and weakness. Uncertainties for me meant sleepless nights, worrying, and weighing my worth, and to strategically place myself in that position sounded crazy.

But Brown was right: “One can choose courage or one can choose comfort, but one can’t have both. Not at the same time.”

In my world, my comfort was in my position, in my work, in my area of so-called expertise because I went through hell to be where I was. But I tried to shake myself a bit, trying to remember a conversation with a fellow colleague-friend whom I lost touch with after some time. It was after a dreadful afternoon filled with case after case, where we discussed how we could keep going and helping those women in vulnerable situations. She said the fight must not stop, and I agreed because I knew that we cannot shake off injustice when we see it every day in all the years of work. But I also told her then that my only hope—a prayer, if you must—was that I would be granted the grace to leave when the time came that I could see myself slipping. If there were someone more passionate to fight for the cause, I would step aside and give what little space I had so that person could ignite a wider fire.

This is where I detest admitting that I might be reaching the point where I need to take a breather. The fire is still there, but my body is revolting against me, and although the passion remains, doors are temporarily closed. Sometimes life gives you these moments when you need to see these turning points as an aid. The stop isn’t really a stop but a respite to something better.

Think. Innovate. Create.

I’ll be on the island. I’ll take all the time that I need. But I am not stopping my advocacy. I am just going back to my core.

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