Traveling

Travelling. 

Much more than taking your body from a place to another. Your eyes, your mind and your psyche goes along with it.

There's so much to soak in. I don't know if this happens to you, but whenever I travel, I sleep (a lot) but I also appreciate. The wind, the smell, the view of the different places. I imagine what it would be like If lived in that place. What my routine would feel like.

My mistake is... I idealize too much the place. Forget how it's composed of people and if they'll fit in with me.

If they'll share the same view as me, or even discuss theirs...

I have lived for so long in this bubble, that I don't know how the world works anymore. How people work anymore. How human interactions actually are.

Being an adult

"Don't lose who you are. In the blurr of the stars."

Guess what? I am back.

7 years later and I am back.

And I am back because it is all coming back. That person full of dreams. That person that used to write about everything and anything. Even if sometimes poorly. I think now my head is in the right place. To think and to create. To BE creative again.

Now I have an opinion of my own about things. I have my likes and dislikes. And even though I don't know what I want in life (because I am confused about things and adulthood like any 25 year old), I think I'll be fine.


In all this time I have lived in a bubble. Which has been burst in the last six months.  In 2013 I started college, because I had to. Pressure from within myself to do what was right for the family as a whole, pressure from whithout, because I HAD to decide what I wanted to to. I guess it all led to where I am now. But still, all those years - 7 years! - I was so insecure.
I didn't know who I was. I just followed this guideline. Study hard, pass your courses, graduate and then... AND THEN... then I came back to that starting point. Where I didn't know where I would go and what the hell I was doing. What I did back then totally represents my moment. Before graduation I walked down a hallway, a barren hallway. With flickering fluorescent lights, you could hear the sound of distant voices that were lost in the emptiness. I travelled that hallway up and down three or four times. Not knowing what I wanted or where I was going. Until I saw a familiar name on a door and knocked on it and sealed my fate for the next 2 years.
My master's degree was an experience both horrible and thrilling. It pushed me to my limits. Pushed me to my breaking point. It made me go further then I had ever gone before. I traveled by myself, talked with new people and learned how to face people I was once afraid of facing. It got me in such a bad place (that I already was, I just wasn't able to recognize it) that it led me to therapy.

So you see... We won't always know what we want. Where we'll go. And just like this post, where I'm going with this. But... whatever we choose (because there will always be a choice - even if we choose poorly), that we'll lead us somewhere. And that allows us to find out what we really want.



Keep in mind to always be kind to yourself. At the end you'll always have yourself to live with and your choices. So don't put too much on you. You'll be fine. 

Prelude

Running. I was running. My heavy legs thundering on the unever ground. The sound of old branches crackling beneath my heavy fast paced footsteps. My lungs were burning, not enough oxygen was being pulled through for what my body required. The pressure on my chest began to build up.
And up. Expanding. And the heat on my legs began to spread. The cold wind was trespassing my cheeks and as it colided with the warm skin on my cheeks it stung. They were also wet. But the cold wind were quickly drying them up.
Was it raining? No. They were tears. I was crying? But all there was, was the running. I was running away from something. Running away from a truth. A truth that ran unspoken all those year, and now had come out.
As the wind blew and I kep running, the daylight began to fade, giving in into the twilight. I stopped in my dead in my tracks. My heart rate thundering, still keeping up as if I was running. My breath desperatly trying to catch. I began to heave and cough. Bending over and straining to breathe, my hands clutching my knees. After gasping for air, I straightened up and looked around. Where was I? The cold wind blew through the nuded branches of the trees, the only trees with green were the pines, with their needles sticking way up, far out of reach. The old dried up leaves crumpled beneath his feet, as I looked around, trying go get a sense of direction. But I got none.
I dropped on my knees to the ground. Feeling lost. Helpeless. Looking down at my hands, I was barely hanging on to sanity, as if there were any left to be hanging on.

Enjoy your taste buds

There were so many other things. There were bad things. But good things too. When I look back, and look at the pictures that I took, that were taken pretty much on the last day, I just think mostly of the good things.

I never realised it. But I did miss some portuguese food. When I lived there I always complained about the food. Mostly at restaurants, because they didn't put enough spices on their food, and it tasted like goddamn baby food. HA-HA. Jokes on that! Because, when I got there, and had the chance to eat, where was the first place I went to? A restaurant. Not a fast food place, or a supermarket. A restaurant. Hold up! That sounds kind of hypocrite doesn't it? Yeah, I know. But... just hear me out. Once I got to that restaurant I ordered a what they call "Bitoque" That's mostly rice, french fries and a rare-medium beef with and egg on top of it. And it was delicious and I missed the taste of it so fucking much! And yes! Say what you will, but I did that face. That face when you taste a food so good your hole face scrunches up in wholly mouth-gasm! I LOVE FOOD. And also, it came with a bread, homemade, that I didn't like it that much when I lived there, because it had a hard crust, but surprise, surprise! I missed it too.

 
    Yeah... I am a sucker for food. And then the days passed, and I ate, at Mc D's, then ate a soup, that I also missed so much (and guess what, I wasn't a big fan of soup when I lived there), and more of that bread AND sweet rice for dessert (best sweet rice EVAAAAH)! And finally, when me and my aunt hit the supermarket nearby, I got to buy "pastéis de nata". That is basically a pastry made of that same bread-type things they make croissants of, that thin thingy and with a lot of vanilla cream inside.. Yummm! Ate a whole bunch of that, but that I already loved before. Almost cried!

Underground

I know, I know.

I kinda, sort of, didn't uphold my deal to share my Portugal trip experience. And that was like, over six months ago. Boy, doesn't time fly by. I'm not making any promises anymore, I'm not that good at keeping them anyway. What I am doing, saying is, somehow, sometime, I will definitely post something.

For now, let me back up to Portugal. To the past that visited the other past.

It was all what I was afraid of. I stayed for a few days in Lisbon, before heading to the town I lived when I was there - Caldas. And it all struck me as new, and familiar all at the same time. It all came to me. Yes, this was a place I knew, a place where I'd been before. The smells were all the same, so familiar. And there were new scents too. The ones that didn't matter to me before but that made such difference.

Backing up to the past: I recalled, that I actually lived in Lisbon, for about three months. At the time I just sat around and did nothing. I didn't go to school, didn't have any friends. It all resumed in watching portuguese television and going out to shopping malls with my mom and brothers. Or ocasionally, going around Lisbon to do our green card. But I should say, a lot of times my mom wasn't there, she had to work. So it was up to me, even if my grandma was there, to solve a couple of things. Like take my youngest brother to the doctor, when he began to have this weird rashes all over his body that looked like white spots, and we later discovered that it was an allergic reaction spread to his skin because of his asthma. The respiratory symptoms were replaced by those. And I would have to go around when I decidedly wanted to go out. But always with my grandma or brothers tagging along. And from that, I got to know Lisbon. Not all of it of course, there's so much further away from your house and places you normally go, that a teenage 13 year old girl and her younger brothers could go by themselves. But anyway, I got to learn how to ride the subway.
And man, when you go underground it's like this magic place that can drop you off anywhere and you don't even see the time go by. Or even more to that, you don't see the roads it takes, or the houses and buildings that it passes by. I mean, there's this beauty I find on skipping a few things. Not because it's easier, it's more peaceful, quiet, and if you know your way around that little tube, you never get lost. Not ever.
So I did enjoy very much riding the subway and going to the places I knew. And to new places I had never been to. It felt good, that feeling. It was all familiar yet all new. There was so many dejà-vù that it let me dizzy. In a good way though...