coming home

Originally shared in Tuesday Notes on August 19, 2026

By the time you're reading this, I've been in Mexico for a few days. I landed in Cancún, and the first thing I felt stepping off the plane was recognition, in my body before my brain caught up. Last time I was here, my family and I were on our last mexico holiday before moving back to Switzerland. I knew my life was about to change massively.

I'm here for a childhood friend's 40th birthday. There's something about childhood friends specifically, the ones who knew you before any of that existed, before you decided who you were going to be, and who had their own hand in shaping who you'd eventually become. The ones you can sit with for hours and land straight back into old stories, like "remember that time your mom had to pick us up in the middle of the night?"

From Cancún I flew to Mexico City, where another childhood friend was waiting for me at the airport, arms wide open and tears flowing down both our faces. This time she had her newborn with her too, and meeting the baby for the first time was a moment all on its own. Meeting the children of your childhood friends is its own strange, emotional thing, watching people you once knew as teenagers, the ones disobeying our parents and getting into trouble, become parents themselves. Surreal and beautiful. I already knew her other two kids well, so I didn't expect meeting her newborn to hit me the way it did, but it undid me a little, in the good way.

The first meal they took me for was tacos, obviously, because some things you don't even have to plan.

The weeks before flying here were full of anticipation. When people ask me where I'm from, the answer is complicated. But Mexico has always stayed important to me, so much so that I've said I'm Mexican in my heart. So the idea of coming back "home" carried real weight. The sounds, the language, the expressions, the warmth, the food, I couldn't wait for any of it. I had Luis Miguel on repeat for weeks. Yes, very cliché. No, I don't care 😉.

Mexico has always stayed important to me, so much so that I've said I'm Mexican in my heart.

There's a word for what I'd been feeling for weeks before I even got on the plane. Nostalgia used to be classified as a disease. Now we know it's doing something closer to the opposite.

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Tuesday Brain Snack 🧠

Psychologist Constantine Sedikides has spent two decades studying nostalgia, and his research keeps returning to the same finding: nostalgia isn't just sentimental sadness, it's a psychological resource. It increases feelings of social connectedness, boosts meaning in life, and even buffers against loneliness. His work suggests we reach for nostalgia most when we need it most, as a built-in coping tool, not a retreat from the present.

So the weeks of emotional anticipation before this trip weren't a sign something was off. They were the mind getting ready to reconnect with a version of yourself it hasn't seen in a while.

Reply and tell me, what's the last thing that made you nostalgic without warning?

Much love, Claudia ✨

PS: yes, this is landing on a Wednesday, not a Tuesday. Turns out reuniting with your childhood in real time is a decent excuse for a late newsletter. Tuesday Notes, technically now Wednesday Notes, back to normal next week 😉.