This might be my favourite piece from you yet, my friend! It’s beautifully written, inspiring, and relatable. Here are the standout bits for me:

• “The moment I stepped on Catalan soil, I felt a shift. My shoulders dropped. Gravity lessened. The city streets seemed ripe with opportunity. The air smelled clean and crisp. For the first time in close to two years, I felt like I could breathe again.”
• “[I]nstead of trying to reinvent myself to become the person I thought other people wanted me to be, I focused on taking the steps to actually get to know the real me.”
• “I was finally able to see all the beauty that exists in the world.”

The paragraph about your (future) wife smiling, from which the final quote above comes, is particularly lovely.

Excellent work!