Sabbatical: I am back but it's not over!
Versão em português (pt-br), clique aqui.
I chose to write this text in Brazil ground because I needed to feel the sensation of the arrival and it was one of the most significant moments of this journey so far. When the pilot announced that we had arrived at Guarulhos-SP, I dive deep into the last 5 months. Remembering the people, the stories, pains and joys, the friends that I made, and the meetings, and especially happy to take this mission without knowing what I will face but naively sure that I will learn a lot with this process. In the end, I was laughing, hugging myself, and feeling the sensation that everything was worth living but here is my place!
Begin: Morocco?
When I was writing the text about Morocco, I was questioning myself if the sabbatical was started there. A few weeks later, I understood that the process started since I was thinking if I will take this journey or not and everything that was related to that. It was already an introspection process. But, after I realized it, rise another question: What is the reason to identify “the begin”? To say that it took 6 months? A year? A journey like that shouldn't measure in months but in the intensity of the experiences.
The importance to go out of your comfort zone
Since I started to imagine the sabbatical, I questioned myself about the reason to go abroad. “If it’s not tourism, why do I need to go abroad?”. The answer came just after my first days in Morocco where I realized that nothing I lived as “out of my comfort zone” here at Brasil was even close to what I lived there. Don't know the culture, don't know anyone, and don't even communicate with words! But that’s the magic because when you go out of your comfort zone, you discover yourself and put everything that you know in debate.
Result
Initially, I thought to bring some numbers here but I understood that the sabbatical is not about it, in the beginning, I said that one of the goals was to try to understand others but, in this process, I understood more about myself than about others. I understood that I am a classic iconoclast, a questioner without breaks (it’s not new), and a researcher but not that one that received a degree from UFCG but a social researcher, a person who likes to meet new people and search in them and in their social interactions the meaning of how the world works.
I understood also that I am happy with the Brasil mess and that staying with my friends really matters. It’s not mean that I will stop to travel. I would like to travel a lot and always but I need my place. Even if this place could be my harbor between arrivals and departures.
New stage, new projects, new skills
As I mentioned in the previous text, Etiene Dalcol remembered me that I should develop new skills as part of my sabbatical. I took some days thinking about it and realized that it will be difficult to do it in Europe so I started to plan them here in Brasil. I can’t say what I will do because I need some approvals for them before making it public but I could say that in the next months I will focus on learning how to work with wood and plant something.
About these texts that help me so much in this process, I could say that I have more two texts to write but so far I will focus in doing, studying to develop these new skills but I will be more than happy to share the results here also.
I would like to say thank you…
I talked with some people about: what people have to take the hard decision to go out of their comfort zone and face the uncertainty of life. I found a lot of friends that took this decision and even with the pain that this process brings, they achieved their goals. The best word I found to describe it is nonconformity. So, I would like to say thank you for my nonconformity that bring me here! Thank you so much!
