What a lemon orchard in Tavira, Portugal taught me about the art of not giving a shit

I jumped out of bed at 5am on a Friday and went straight to my desk. No alarm. No obligation. Just me, my space, and the quiet hum of a life I’d built — welcoming me back like an old friend. Five days earlier, I had been sitting in a lemon orchard in Tavira, Portugal, completely, beautifully, and almost alarmingly ungrounded. And I mean that in the best possible way.

A Milestone Birthday, A Villa, and One Very Good Decision

I turned 60 this year. My niece turned 40. Two milestone birthdays, one Dominican family, and a decision that felt equal parts spontaneous and inevitable: we were going to celebrate — really celebrate — together. My birthdays have always lived wherever my vacation lands. April is unpredictable, so years ago I made a quiet pact with myself to defer the cake until the sunshine was guaranteed. This year, the cake landed in Tavira, Portugal. And it changed something in me I didn’t know needed changing.

We rented a villa. Eleven bedrooms, more space than we needed, and sitting squarely in the middle of a lemon orchard. Let that land for a second. A lemon orchard. There was a full garden with fresh herbs, orange trees heavy with fruit, and flowers growing wild enough to pick on a morning walk. My great-niece and great-nephew (eight and ten years old) took it upon themselves to squeeze fresh orange juice every single morning. They did it with the kind of pride that makes your chest ache a little.

When we pulled up that circular driveway and the villa came into view, my mother walked the entire perimeter of the house, touched every olive tree, and cried.

I watched her and it hit me somewhere deep and wordless. Something about witnessing your mother weep quietly because she’s touching trees in Portugal does something to your understanding of how far you’ve come.

What It Feels Like to Breathe Tavira, Portugal In

The living room was what I can only describe as a breezeway. Six sets of antique double doors — three on either side — that you could throw open and let the Portuguese air move straight through. And I did. Every chance I got. Because that’s how I take in a place. Not through my eyes first, but through my lungs. I breathe it in.

I breathed Portuguese air. Salt, citrus, something floral I couldn’t name. Birds in the morning. The smell of whatever was happening in the kitchen drifting through the open doors. Fresh breezes that made the whole house feel alive.

The moment that stopped me completely? I looked out the window of my suite and saw my niece picking flowers in the garden below. Just quietly, in her own world, gathering blooms in the golden morning light.

This is our Brontë moment, I thought. We are actually having a Brontë moment.

Thirty Years of Structure and the Woman It Built

Here’s what I need you to understand about me. I found my footing in corporate America and spent 30 years there.

Growing up Dominican, in a household that was loud and beautiful and not always predictable, work gave me the quiet I needed. The order. The place to land.

Structure. Routine. Boundaries and a desk. Yes, please.

I don’t say that with any regret. I say it because it explains everything about what happened to me in Tavira.

Because at 60, I am no longer in corporate. I’m an entrepreneur. I showed up to that villa not as someone whose work continues without her. I showed up as someone whose work is her. So to detach meant feeling a little exposed, and tapping into your trust. My business existed, humming quietly in the background of every lemon-scented afternoon.

But here’s what surprised me: I still let go. Slowly, messily, and with a lot of wine — but I let go.

The Art of the Beautiful Yes

I said yes to things at dinner and forgot them by morning. Completely forgot. My family member who lives in Tavira wanted an impromptu photo shoot. I enthusiastically agreed. The next day? Gone. No memory. No follow-through. Zero.

Yeah, there was a little mild panic that I was having a menopausal episode, but in the end having realized I let something slip. And then and this is the part I want you to sit with — I realized I just didn’t give a shit.

Not in a careless way. In a free way.

My past self would have course-corrected immediately. Would have flagged it, called myself “flaky, followed up, apologized, rescheduled, managed the whole thing back into order. Instead, I looked at the people around me and said, flat out: “If I agree to something and drop the ball, it is what it is.”

Everyone laughed. And I gave myself the grace to laugh too.

That felt like something. That felt like a woman who had finally — finally — stopped white-knuckling every single commitment and trusted that the people who love her could handle my imperfection.

The photo shoot never happened. We did eventually make it to our family member’s home for a visit, but only because I put it in my calendar two days out and treated it like a meeting. Because that’s still me. Structure is still my love language. But for five days, I let the space between the structure breathe. And that breathing? That was the gift.

The Catamaran, the French Fries, and the Woman Learning to Trust

There’s a moment that involves a catamaran and french fries that I’ll probably carry for a long time.

My nephew-in-law organized this excursion with love and precision. 10am departure. Clear as day. And listen — I am that woman. The one who wakes up at 5am to review dashboards and draft articles before the rest of the world has found its coffee. The one who showed up to every corporate meeting not just on time, but early. I treated punctuality like my personal brand. I was never late to work. I was never late to anything (unless the universe itself had other plans), and even then I was negotiating with the universe to move faster.

On this day at the pier, however, I ordered french fries at a pier restaurant a few minutes before our 10am departure. I held ten people up. For french fries.

Here’s my defense: I was trying to be self-sufficient. Trying to make sure I wouldn’t be the hungry, cranky one making everyone miserable somewhere in the middle of the cruise. What I did not account for was the possibility that someone had already thought of that. So there I stood, waiting on my order, until someone had to come to the pier café and physically retrieve me.

I didn’t know what to expect when I was told we were going out on a boat. I pictured something modest. What I did not picture was stepping onto what was essentially a yacht — a captain, a host, and a full spread of food already laid out and waiting for us.

I stepped onto that deck and saw the spread.

I laughed a little inside. And then I ate the fries anyway. With zeal.

That is the version of me that Tavira unlocked. The one who planned for a problem that didn’t exist, held everyone up doing it, realized she was wrong — and let it go anyway. The one who is slowly, gratefully learning to trust that she will be taken care of. That she doesn’t have to carry everything. That sometimes the spread is already waiting.

The one who’s late. And somehow, perfectly on time.

We Earned Every Bit of This

We deserve to be here. That’s what I felt in that villa, in that orchard, on that boat.

Not how did we get here because I know exactly how we got here. We worked. We sacrificed. We showed up when it wasn’t convenient and kept going when it was hard. My family, my mother touching those trees, my great-niece and nephew squeezing oranges with pride, all of it was earned.

This wasn’t luck. This was the long game paying out.

And reconciling our humble beginnings with that moment? It wasn’t a contradiction. It was a completion. We weren’t rejecting where we came from by standing in that villa. We were honoring it.

Coming Home to Myself

By the last day, I was ready to come home. That’s always how it goes with me, some quiet internal mechanism starts pulling you back, reminding you of things left undone, people left waiting, newsletters left unreviewed.

I landed. I slept. And at 5am, I was at my desk.

The first thing I did was pull up a newsletter draft my team had been working on. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to. Because sitting in my space, with the air moving through my windows on my terms, with a project in front of me and music in the background, that is also joy. That is also me.

But here’s what was different: I came back softer. Fuller. More willing to trust what I’d built. In Tavira, I worried about a few small work details and then did absolutely nothing about them and everything was fine. The world did not fall apart. The business survived my five days in a lemon orchard.

The stillness of my office that Friday morning felt like welcoming an old friend. But I was slightly different than when I’d left her.

What Tavira Quietly Cracked Open

Here’s what I know now that I didn’t quite know before Tavira: the women who most need to let go are often the ones who’ve built the most elaborate systems to avoid it. We mistake control for safety. We mistake busyness for worth. And we travel — really travel — and somewhere between a catamaran and a crying mother touching a lemon tree, something quietly cracks open.

You don’t have to go to Portugal. But you do have to go somewhere that asks something of you. Somewhere that disrupts your routine just enough to reveal who you are without it.

Because who you are without it? She’s worth meeting.

Go find her. Intentionally. Unapologetically. And if you agree to a photo shoot and forget about it by morning — give yourself the grace to laugh, raise your glass, and call it a win.