I consider myself lucky for having the opportunity to share
this now. It has been a while since I arrived to New Zealand and it has been a
while since I left home, which sounds really obvious but is not as easy as it
seems, is in fact a whole different situation: Arriving here means a new world to
discover, new friends to meet, more things to do, different ways to waste your
money in the most expensive city ever and, of course, a new chance to learn how
to love and respect other cultures. Leaving home means relying on the
possibility of finding happiness, believing that things are actually going to
work, that everything is going to be okay, although is easy to find out that
things will not change just because you left and now you are “doing your life”
in another country.
Face it: – it is time to, I guess – as soon as you get back
home things will be as messy and confusing as usual, or maybe even worse. If
there is something that I have learnt while living abroad is that bad news
hurt; just because is true. No matter how far you are, no matter how long you
will stay away for, there will always exist the chance of feeling weak and
succumb under homesickness and guilt (and feel sad because people can't handle their sexual needs).
Why did I choose to leave? Because I was sick of being in my
city, because I was sick of seeing the same guys from my Boys School every
single day, because I was tired of that soporiferous atmosphere in the bus on
the way back home. Because I did not want to talk to my parents anymore,
because not even the cigarettes that I smoked there (of cheaper price and with less
prejudice) or the people I met, or the parties I went to, nor the friends that
I loved made me feel alright.
I was also tired of speaking in Spanish, although I
recognize that my English skills are yet limited and sort of basic. I really
want to improve and “own” this language, because the only things that you do
well are the ones that you like doing; and I am absolutely in love with
English, it is something that I discovered as a joke when I was a Naïve, little
kid, and now is one of the most important things in my life. It really “opens the
doors” to a new world, but I am not writing about the “economical” or “social”
meaning of these “new chances” I am writing about a better way to express
myself, without limits, with no fear of being judged.
Weird things happen when you are outside of your country.
You realize that all of the details that you used to hate about your culture,
all of those little things in your society and political system that used to
annoy you, are now fun facts that you can use to make friends; What a paradox!
It is really fun to exchange swearing words (if only they knew what
“conchetumare” literally means…) and costumes with them (It was shocking for me
to find out that there is no such thing as “kissing cheeks” to say hello to a
person of the opposite sex that you barely know.), and even more hilarious to
see my Mexican friends using the word “Weon” instead of their typical “guey”
(that means dude or mate in English, only between friends. In other contexts it
may sound rude). In another occasion, when my Colombian mates left, I remember
the 3-hours-long conversation about what it means to be Latin-American; trying
to find the reasons why we are so unhappy in our own places, and how this trip
to “the other side of the world” made us find the real worth of being American…
Juan Fernando said: “We’ve been through so much exploitation and abuse, and no
matter all the shit that has happened, all the dirty politics. We still there,
smiling, fighting and dancing. We are the people of the most beautiful region
ever, we should feel proud of it”
Nonetheless, I am not so sure if these 3 months away from
Chile helped me to “grow up” or made things any better within me. I am still
the same anxious, fucked up, impulsive, hurtful, sharp, arsehole, academically smart, with zero emotional intelligence and semi-successful
young man. Not much has changed.
A friend in Chile said once: “We are like the sand: we just
go where the water and the wind lead us, taking new experiences and learning
new things, I hope” (she was such a pseudo-philosophical poet). And maybe she
was right. Although I have not improved at all, I learned to accept our
differences as human beings, found friendships that stay “through thick and
thin” with you, and had lots of laughs and tears and rises and falls… and that
means more than anything else I have lived.
I do not think I will come back to New Zealand soon,
although I wish I could; but I am definitely excited to find new destinations
far from home. I like the feeling of being a “no-one” and getting stressed in
the attempt of meeting new people. And let’s admit that I also like being
missed in my city. Nobody screams as loud as I do in my classroom, nobody plays
the guitar at 5 a.m. during New Year’s Celebration.
#Shithappens
#3andAHalfWeeksLeft #Sadlife
*note: Almost no contractions (don't, weren't, ain't, etc.) were used because this was for an English assessment (of course I didn't add swearing words in the actual work, except the Spanish ones).
