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Through New Eyes
In the last year, 2010, I was on grade 11. Actually, I was on the second year of the high school, because this is the way we call the grade 11 in Brazil. Oh yeah, I am a Brazilian. Anyway, I was on the beginning of my school year when my mom arrived at home one day and told me “Hey, I was thinking that maybe you could spend more time in Australia, instead of just one month”. I stared at her, I could not believe on it, she was crazy. “Pardon?” I said, and she replied with “Yeah, my friend’s daughter did it”. I still could not believe on her, so I just ignored it. Even because the high school in my country is such a hard one: we study unstoppable these tree last years to get into a good public college in the end, through the hardest exam ever. She was proposing me to stop this unstoppable study time to have a new time, a new life for a whole semester.
This idea that sounded like a crazy one, turned into a dream in my head. A dream because it seemed really unreal to me. The thing is that I decided to make it real, we decided it, my mom and I. My Dad would never accept it, because of my destiny. He would probably say that Australia is a really party country, where people at my age would not learn English, they would learn how to party. My best option was Canada. “Canada is a serious country” he did say “where you will for sure study more than go out to parties”. He was right. Although, not at all.
On September 2nd I was leaving my country, my dearest people, and my dearest food. I came to Nanaimo without knowing anybody or anything but the language. I knew myself, and I knew I am strong. I felt strong. This was what helped me to go ahead and do it, to leave all my life, my studies, to begin a new life and live it the fullest.
The problem is that in the beginning it was not easy to live a new life the fullest. I did not even know how to do it, and also with whom I would share it. I have always had a great host family, so, I would never complain about them. But I still missed my real family, my friends, and my food. I missed Brazil so bad.
I remember that I walked crying in the streets when I was coming back home. When I arrived there, I would cry even more, I would think I would never stop to cry. This happened uncountable times. I felt sad, alone, incomplete. I was already getting used to it, for me, crying was as natural as smiling. It almost turned into an everyday habit. Sometimes I cried harder, I suffered more, I missed more.
The time passed by, and I actually got used to miss them. But – thanks god! – I lost the habit of crying for them. Probably because I found people that made me smile again, people that made me happy. They were already my good friends, my greatest people here. I still want my friends, my family and my food from Brazil. But I also want to live with these new friends, new family and new food forever maybe.
I got used to my new life. I began to love it. I found perfect people. I go out with them. I see perfect views when I come back home. And when I arrive home, I meet this lovely family that I have been having the chance to live with.
One of these days, I was talking to my mom in the Skype. “I am so happy, in twenty days you will be back!” she told me, I answered “Oh, I am happy too. But, I am also sad.”. I will come back to my old life. I will come back to my people, my country. I still can not believe on it. My unreal dream of spending one semester away turned into real. It was so fast, so perfect. I have already lived it the fullest. I have already cried from the bottom of my heart. But now I love it from the bottom of my heart, and it hurts when I remember that it is in the end. That it was missing just more twenty days when I talked to my mom. That it is missing just more ten days now.
The truth is that my perfect times are passing by, just like my crying times. All of them made me grow. Now, I guess I am a grown up girl. I am coming back to Brazil, to all of my familiar life, but, I am different. I will look all of it through different eyes. New great eyes, but still the same ones who cried until almost get dried once.