Poema

O que já chorei em ti, o que já sofri em ti, as lágrimas e os choros que já ouviste; os gritos desalmados e o meu desespero. Tudo isto já passou por ti.
Tudo o que lamento, tudo o que soluço, tudo o que sempre quis já passou por ti.
Toda a minha tristeza, todo o meu pranto... Tu foste o meu sustento. Tu foste quem me acolheu de braços abertos sem preconceitos, nem restrições. Sem perguntas e sem condições. Tudo o que por mim passa, passa também por ti. Ou não fosse eu uma alma desesperada em cima de ti, minha almofada.

Moving home

"Leaving home can only happen because there is a home to leave. And the leaving is never just a geographical or spatial separation; it is an emotional separation - wanted or unwanted. Steady or ambivalent. (...) Home is much more than shelter; home is our centre of gravity. (...) When we move house, we take with us the invisible concept of home - but it is a very powerful concept. Mental health and emotional continuity do not require us to stay in the same house or the same place, but they do require a sturdy structure on the inside - and that structure is built in part by what has happened on the outside. The inside and the outside of our lives are each the shell where we learn to live."

Jeanette Winterson,"Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?"

- People who move home don’t know what to expect. They will never know what it feels like until it happens to them. “Home movers” need to find their balance and must realize that home can move with them, if they let themselves adapt. It doesn’t mean they have to leave everything behind, it just means they are learning to live. -

I moved to Lisbon three years ago, to study. It wasn’t a choice; it was what the academic bureaucracies chose for me; my average wasn’t enough to get into the University I wanted. Looking back in time, I kind of wish I had stayed in my hometown. I kind of feel like I missed so much that was part of my life before. Kind of; because coming to Lisbon taught me much more than I could ever imagine. Leaving home, just like Jeanette Winterson wrote, was more than leaving a geographical space.

         I spent three years feeling dislocated when it came to belonging somewhere. I knew that “home” was Porto, my house, my family, my friends, my things… I also knew that every time I went there for the weekend, I could have all of that back, even if just for two days. I just had to get on a bus and everything would be exactly the way it was. But then, each time I went back to Lisbon, I would cry so badly and I would be so sad; each trip back to the capital was a reminder of everything I was leaving behind and the three years I would spend away from it. Yet in my mind I would go back to Porto after a few years, so it never really made sense to be connected to this temporary city. I never made much friends, I never explored much of the city and definitely didn’t get out much of my apartment.

But all of that changed a few weeks ago. Something I wasn’t expecting and which changed my concept of “home”.

         It was a normal weekend visiting my family. We talked, we had our meals all together at the table, we watched TV, we played; but somehow it all felt very strange. I sensed something different. They didn’t really care about my days in Lisbon; they didn’t ask me about school; they didn’t ask me about my friends, or anything about what I was doing. And when they did, it was just to be polite. I started to realize that they didn’t see me the same way they did before. Not that they did it on purpose, but I didn’t matter that much to them. I was spending most of the time somewhere else and sort of belonged to another reality now. It knocked me out! For the first time I was feeling left out of what I had always called my home and crying for being away from Lisbon. How I cried that weekend… I thought this must have been the feeling of not having a family. It was like someone had taken away my solid ground and I didn’t have anywhere to stand on. Everything was just thin air and I was floating.

         The next days were very confusing. I was having a hard time accepting what was happening and I couldn’t understand why it was happening. I didn’t understand why this was happening just now, after so long. My appearance was apathetic and numb for a few days; until a friend of mine, who had been through the same, and Jeanette Winterson helped me understand my confusion.

When I move away from home, I have to adapt myself; to let my body and my mind adapt to the new environment. The things I leave behind will also naturally adapt and I have to do the same. Things change and that is a natural part of life: when we hurt ourselves, our skin creates a crust; when the sun goes down, the petals on the flowers close; when the soil is dry, the tree roots stretch and seek for water.

If my space changes through time, I can’t wish to be in a past space; I have to be in the present. And I guess that is why it took me so long to finally realize that “home” was changing for me. I was wishing so many times to go back, that I was living in the past during the last three years of my life. I didn’t change; I didn’t adapt myself the same way that the rest of the people did. My body was in Lisbon, but my mind was in the home I had left behind. My parents probably adapted quickly, because I was their 6^th child going away to live somewhere else; they were used to having their children going away. But for me, this was all new. And so, when it hit me, it felt like a bomb exploding. It was like I was holding an elastic band to October 2009 and suddenly it broke.

Jeanette Winterson wrote that “mental health and emotional continuity do not require us to stay in the same house or the same place, but they do require a sturdy structure on the inside”. After reading this passage, it came to my senses that my structure was destroyed. I lost my mental health and emotional continuity all at once and it only happened because my outside was a lie. I was forcing myself to live something which wasn’t real, living in a temporary place, and by doing so, my inside couldn’t keep up with the outside. Life needs to be balanced, and if something is heavier than the other, eventually it will give in. “The inside and the outside of our lives are each the shell where we learn to live”; thus, I have to learn to live in both shells at the same time. That is how I keep sanity and the sturdy structure Jeanette Winterson writes about. That is how I will keep myself from falling down again.

Sharing the same “family” concept with my family, but not sharing the same “home” concept with them is a difficult situation for me to understand. I know now that they can be separated, but I also know that they can be put together again. It will take time, adaptation and above all a sturdy structure built by a strong mind. In due time, after I have gone back to my hometown and reconnected the family ties, I can build a new home again.

- When I moved home, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what it felt like until it happened to me. I wish to all the other “home movers” that they find their balance and that they can realize, just like I did, that home can move with us if we let ourselves adapt. It doesn’t mean we have to leave everything behind, it just means that we are learning to live. –