One More Day
Last Sunday I was not in the greatest mindset and not feeling particularly good but this has been contrasted by my thoughts and feelings this Sunday. Everything is really coming together.
The week has steadily progressed with each day, I think I'm gunna start plotting how I feel on a graph so I can look back on it.
After Monday's stressful start, Tuesday began much better and what was meant to be a day of Portuguese learning, ended up in a long discussion with my housemate on everything from politics to space + time with stops everywhere along the way such as religion and sexuality.
I've always watched sitcoms and wanted that mid 20's/30's life where they live together, all get along and get up to shenanigans, a la New Girl, Friends and the like. That group, and the sense of belonging to one that can be elusive at times.
No real shenanigans as of yet but we do all get along and hang out, its a great atmosphere in the house and I'm really in a place where I can relax. I love it here.
I then had a provisional date planned for Wednesday with a Brazilian who spoke no English, so I spent the day studying more and more Portuguese. Just incases. It fell through but I wasn't disappointed, I kinda knew it was coming and watched Independence Day in Portuguese instead. I felt good about how much I understood, with the help of subtitles and the added memories of previous viewings.
I ended up learning the language into the early hours of the morning, not because I had to but because I found myself in a real state of flow and had an inspiration to learn. It's also helping me with my patience. When learning a new skill, its doesn't noticeably improve day to day particularly, only upon reflection, similar to the growth of abs when going to the gym or growing your hair. Another thing I'm also putting into action. The hair, not the gym...
So with growing my hair (a big one), the new job, new friends, the language and the coding, I have a lot I'm building slowly.
I found myself in that state of flow again when I began to create a website on Thursday. I think I overestimated myself and tried too much for my first attempt but during those few hours I only had thoughts on how to program before relaxing with a couple of table beers in my beloved Barzinhos, again speaking of important topics.
Friday followed a very similar blueprint, albeit it with more extreme values, getting more crunk and hitting the town with the English trio of online teachers; myself, Maddy + Mark, a group of which I again feel very much part of. They want to call us the super cool kids crew but I defiantly disagree, which is most likely why they want to name us that. All night, we drank, danced and debated; not just the name but politics, energy, sports and pretty much anything. We are a very honest lil' group which lays everything on the table and as I walked home listening to music, I felt completely happy, dancing my way home.
Saturday in turn began slowly but built nicely as myself and Maddy hit up the Maracana, to watch the Fla-Flu, coined many years ago as a classic of the crowds, it's a Rio rivalry spanning many years. It's been labeled as more of a celebration of Brazilian football than a heated rivalry In the same manner as the last game it wasn't the standard of football but the crowd that is the real draw.
We didn't have tickets and went on a whim, scouring outside for ticket touts, of which there were of course many. Many trying to charge extortionate gringo prices. But they had all the power as we had no knowledge of Portuguese or how to get tickets. That was half the fun though, being around the crowds, beer in hand trying to find tickets. I know Ameet gets this feeling (happy now?). We ended up overpaying (relative to Brazil) and sitting in the far from sold out away end of the Fluminense fans. But that's the price you pay for having that attitude, I dig it and it definitely didn't take away from the day, despite the distinguishing of the Flu fans throughout the course of the game.
One beer seller, who brings it to your seats btw, was clearly a Fluminense fan and struggling to hide his emotions (if he was even trying), punching and kicking empty seats, giving the finger to nearby Flamengo fans and spending most of his time with his head in his hands. He can't have been the only one who wasn't happy as after the game, around a corner of which we couldn't see, something was clearly kicking off as policemen on horses were charging in. At one point nearby we saw a man running away from, I shit you not, a policeman chasing him on horseback brandishing a sword. A fucking sword!
We swiftly left to meet some friends at an art museum which was having a ridiculously cool event. I'll be honest, to begin with I wasn't overly keen, I'm not particularly into my modern art and just overall imagining it to be too cool for me.
So, Saturday night in Rio De Janeiro, I'm attending an art museum with funky music, surrounded by art, big hipster crowds and people skating. It was probably one of the coolest places I'll ever be and I loved it. It was a really chilled atmosphere as people just hung around, drinking beer from outside vendors and boogieing to some great music. Everybody was dressed well and looked amazing, many in basketball jerseys, the thing which probably most drew my attention. I was also wearing an old school Miami Heat jersey so probably looked the coolest out of anyone... except for a guy in an old school purple Raptors jersey.
Bastard.
I actually chased him to the toilets weirdly to get a picture but I can't get it off my camera.
I awoke on Sunday in a great mood; I hadn't drank too much, had a clear head from the week, I'd been eating well (not cooking well, but good amounts) and was just generally feeling relaxed. I kept doing stupid little small things but nothing was bothering me. I felt good.
I headed to play our regular football game on Sunday evenings. Each week I've been growing in confidence, and playing better and better despite having to use my basketball shoes! This week we had a strong team and we played some beautiful football. Linking up with Brazilians, Colombians and Irishmen alike to face off against 2 teams of Englishmen, Russians and Argentinians to name a few nationalities. One of the Argies classically bringing down our Colombian trickster in true Argentinian fashion.
But the pace of games and standard of the games was high and once more I found myself fully immersed and focused, having one of my better games.
This sense of flow has become more and more occurrent in all facets of life, including socially, and was exactly what I was looking for, along with the sense of belonging I've found within the football group, the English and the Brazilians.
Usually an over-thinker, I now find in my spare time this thought energy is directed to problem solving or positive reflection whereas in the moment I am becoming locked in to situations around me and things are becoming much more natural.
On top of all of this, I got paid, I passed the probation period of my job and the Basketball season is back tomorrow. Things are all going well.
Now this song, albeit originally about God, for me is more about drawing strength and turning positive, as well as a feel good sound which represents my feelings for the NBA being back in the morrow.
In line with this I now wanna share a post by Kevin Love who despite being a professional Basketball player for our previous rivals, he actually helped me to write my honest feelings here due to his post about his panic attacks and sharing. Writing it down really does help. If its quite long at least scroll down to the bottom.
With mental health awareness day last week, a big thought to those who are suffering but also to everyone, we are not all mentally ill but we all have mental health and its important to look after yours.
Everyone is going through something that we can’t see.
The thing is, because we can’t see it, we don’t know who’s going through what and we don’t know when and we don’t always know why. Mental health is an invisible thing, but it touches all of us at some point or another. It’s part of life. Like DeMar said, “You never know what that person is going through.”
Mental health isn’t just an athlete thing. What you do for a living doesn’t have to define who you are. This is an everyone thing. No matter what our circumstances, we’re all carrying around things that hurt — and they can hurt us if we keep them buried inside. Not talking about our inner lives robs us of really getting to know ourselves and robs us of the chance to reach out to others in need. So if you’re reading this and you’re having a hard time, no matter how big or small it seems to you, I want to remind you that you’re not weird or different for sharing what you’re going through.
Kevin Love
Even if its just sharing in a text, us Millenials are getting pretty good at this, and I'm always here to listen, honestly, I've got loads of time.
