To Die and to Become

Brasil.
The smells, the food, the people, the smiles. I just came back from an exchange year in Sweden (2011-2012). It has been easier than I thought to adapt to my culture, even after all the changes I suffered these last months. It feels as if I have been away for years, and yet never left. I suppose others know the feeling.

It was an amazing experience. The damaging and healing it does to one's soul is just overwhelming. You die, are reborn, die again and are reborn again. In fact, you do that so many times you forget who you were in the first place. And that's good! Right?

Well, yes. When you are taken (even if by choice) away from all you know, all the confort you have ever had, the changes are a little brutal. In the beginning it just feels like an amazing and interesting world (which it is), but then you have to start adapting yourself to it. And not everyone likes to do that, do they? It is not that simple. Not that easy. You undergo an initiation of some sort, most of the times unspoken. It is not a sea of roses to force yourself to change, and finally not be told when to. That is a major step in adulthood - being able to tell yourself when change is needed.

Yes, it is good to change. It hurts, both for leaving your old self behind and for embracing the new one knowing it too will fade away. Knowing that you aren't as predictable and knowable as you thought you were. But then again, who are you, anyway? I am not allowed to tell you the whole story, but I can say this much: you are not. You never were anything. You are not because in no point of the space-time illusion you weren't changing. Therefore, embracing the fact that you are always in motion, we can agree that you are not, but are becoming. You were never yourself because there is no self to be. You are the action of trying to be who you think yourself to be.

That being said, note that you are always dying. And being born, why not. You have always been, and you will always be. You will always become, wanting it or not. Being aware of it or not. Funny enough, this being as simple as it is, you only know it after being through so many (little and/or big) katharsis you can't even count anymore. And what is becoming other than learning? Learning how to outgrow every little thing that might bind your becoming being to your dying one. Learning how you have got nothing to lose, and yet cry when it is gone. Learning to remember, and not get stuck. Learning to care. To Love.

Becoming is the process of Loving. One always walks towards the most lovable thing he or she knows, and that is no surprise. The idea of the perfect job, the loving family, the honorable respect. The prideful pride. Oneself. God, whatnot.

I am still trying to find out who the hell I am becoming. I learned much (maybe too much) in this short period of time. I learned how to teach myself, and that is of no price. I met amazing people, I dived in headfirst, I laughed, I loved. I wished I could be in two places at the same time. Then I realized everything has its time, for we must grow. We must go on, to become. We must Love with all the intensity in the world and beyond, because it will all fade away. And to honor the partings of the living and the dead, we must remember what we Love.

And I remember everything.