Lucia O.

Hello everybody!

Translate to your language by selecting from the box~:

USA250 Journal Project

Personal Chronicle: July 4, 2025 – July 5, 2026
A gift for reflection. A record of now. A story for what’s next.

✍️ “Who am I?”

I’m Lucia Ortiz. City girl. First in the family to get a salaried job that doesn’t require weather forecasts or worry about leaf spot.

I’m a strategist. A builder of brands. A fixer of other people’s messes.

But when I go home, I’m still the daughter. The girl who got ignored every time a tree needed pruning or a storm knocked out the power.

I left for a reason.

And yet—here I am. Still checking citrus prices like it’s a compulsion. Still defending my family when someone calls our region “backwards.” Still wondering if I ran far enough to stop caring.

I speak up. I log off. I circle back. I feel too much.

I’m trying to build something new while still carrying what broke us.

✍️ “How did I get here?”

I left the grove at eighteen and never looked back—except when I did. Over and over.

Orlando felt like air. Clean. Fast. I could be anyone. And I was. First a design intern, then a copywriter, now a campaign lead with a keycard and a standing desk and coworkers who don’t smell like pesticides.

But behind the emails and deadlines is a loop:
Did I abandon them?
Or did I just refuse to drown with them?

Every call from home is layered—Mama pretending the numbers look better, Papi asking about storms without asking how I am, Mateo wanting to save it all like it doesn’t cost him.

I don’t want to go back. But I do want them safe.

And lately, I’ve been wondering if the agency I work for is part of the same system pushing them out.

How did I get here?

By moving fast. By leaving early. By learning to talk like I was never raised in the dirt.

What has life taught me?

That distance doesn’t mean detachment.
That legacy can look like a wound or a seed.
And that sometimes, the ones who leave still love it hardest.