If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out
That's all folks.
For now.
The monkey's out of the bottle
I had been keeping the fact that I am coming home a secret to surprise my very sharp and difficult to surprise brother, whose birthday it is this month. The lengths we all went to not let anything slip was well, far. We paid attention to every little detail to ensure he could not even harbour the thought that I was coming back and we succeeded.
A video was here; it wasn’t in the backup.
It was all worth it to see him at that moment and it has already been golden just to spend some quality time with the family. I am home for 5 weeks and although I will be involved in many family activities I hope that I will get a chance to see most everyone at least for a small part.
I remember the night before I left for Rio some 10 months ago, a friend had asked me what I wanted out of this trip? Good question. It always started as a jump forward as I found myself becoming stagnant at home. I had an unclear view of what the future held, even what I wanted it to. I stumbled with an answer along the lines of, 'what I want to do' which was in part true and from the way things have worked I have answered this, at least for the next 5 years or so, so problem solved.
In actuality the fact that I struggled to really have an answer and at times struggled to really express myself or say what I want to say, was what I was looking to free myself from. Nina gets it, as do the Lighthouse Family who did a fantastic version.
And I sure did. I allowed myself and my thoughts to run free, sometimes to darker areas but I have found myself speaking and thinking freer without my own judgement. I've allowed myself to feel things and emotions without telling myself I shouldn't, such as anger in certain situations. It doesn't mean I've acted on it but by actually by allowing myself to feel it, it's become more naturally easy to control it. If you think and act only on how you think you should how can you understand yourself at all. I've let my head run free and have found myself becoming more disciplined. By knowing what things lead me down a good path, both physically and emotionally, as well as what behaviours and thoughts send me down a bad path, I've been able to install habits and behaviours to control it, my own mental programming.
At times I would let myself wallow in my bed or just let my undisciplined thoughts take their hold but over time I realised that it is in these moments that I needed to begin to think positive or get up and do something. I needed to be kinder to myself. Do things I didn't want to in order so that future Marco doesn't have to. Over time this is getting easier and easier to do and it is becoming more habitual.
As I have not moved in the past 10 months or actually travelled, I realise that this travel blog has become more of a mental health blog, or a platform for me to speak my mind. At the start more exciting things were happening but after a while there's only so much I can talk about basketball, the soap, table beers and coding, which became my life. Thank you for reading it anyway. It has been important for me and I feel 10x clearer, more confident and stronger from it.
Travelling is not for everyone. Even sometimes I believe I am not the travelling type. There are those better suited to the continuous social demand and comfort zone escaping that takes it toll, but boy do I enjoy living in a new place and exploring it. Building friendships over time, finding hidden or not so hidden gems and understanding the place.
I would also not recommend it to everyone, it depends completely on their personality and situation, those who have a social group nearby in which they hold a sense of belonging or an other half who they love by their side. You are not missing out. You have your own journey which brings happiness. Both sides have green and mud patches.
However if you don't have those things, it's a fantastic opportunity in which you will see some awesome sights and experience completely different things and ways of living.
If you do have the urge, I would recommend going on your own at least for a period of time. It gives you the ability to be yourself in a place where there are no previous preconceptions of you. You can choose to do the things you really want to do, take the beaten path, be a trailblazer, see only the old pubs or just nature or just sit in a hammock and do fuck all. You can also choose where to go or where not to go, go to places with people you like, don’t go to places with people you don’t like. It is all in your hands.
I chose to stay and work online which allowed me to explore my craving of coding and realise that that is what I wanted to do. So I stayed in my cozy flat, working away and doing the little things with my few friends and flatmates.
That did isolate me a little bit and with fluent English speaking flatmates I slacked on my Portugues. If I was doing this again and I almost certainly will elsewhere I would work somewhere with a workforce where there is forced contact with people and gives time to build relationships. I would also live with non-speaking flatmates because it would give that necessity to learning the language and would speed up the process.
That being said for this particular time, what this was, was perfect for me. I needed some time away to think about a lot of things and discover whats real to me. Over my last weekend in Rio, I have been the strongest I’ve ever felt and incredibly happy and it is in part thanks to the city, the culture, the people I've met and the fact I've done things my way.
I am back for a month to see familiar faces and embrace and spend time with those of whom I’ve been missing. Upon return I will visit a new place in Brazil for a few weeks whilst I wait for my friend Harry to come out and escort me around South America. For those of you who know Harry Sinclair Waugh know that there will never be a dull moment. I will continue to move around and will begin to write again, this time about; the places, the culture and the experiences.
But for those of you have read along and encouraged me as I wrote I thank you, particularly Nana, my biggest fan and who I continued to write for. This whole experience has really allowed me to get out of my own head and really allowed myself to be me, who I am and who I want to be, not who I think I should be. For Mike, who asked me what I wanted from the trip, it was exactly that which I wanted to achieve.
