That was me only eight years ago, but it seems so far away.

Tulum, in the Mexican Riviera Maya, is my favorite place of the Madre Tierra I know. It’s my sacred place. It’s the place I think about and get a sudden and sharp pain in my gut de la añoranza de querer estar allí. Cómo te extraño, mi México.

My husband and I lived in Playa del Carmen, just a 45-minute drive to Tulúm, for most of 2005. For those with a good historical memory of devastating natural disasters, that was the year that Hurricane Wilma ripped through Cancun and the Riviera Maya and that Katrina did what it tragically did.

A few months after Wilma left us practically jobless, both my husband and I got (miraculous!) job offers to move to Los Angeles to be part of the new team at mun2, which was setting up digs in Universal City in L.A. Y, pues, aquí estamos.

Admittedly, moving from the Riviera Maya was one of the toughest decisions I ever made, but it had to be done. Less than a year later we returned for Thanksgiving break and we spent a few nights in Tulum — and my daughter was born nine months later…ahem.

That’s this #ThrowbackThursday picture. Me with a glow and in my place of peace.

In Lak’ech — Mayan for “You are my Other Me.”