"Thoughts on Living Abroad"... a load of love, sadness, pride and shite

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).