Dreams

One of my dearest friends is about to leave to everything in the U.K. (her flat, her job, family & friends), to go on a solo-adventure to volunteer in Thailand. This friend of mine started as a waitress at a start-up business; who has the business grew, so did her professional career (you can see her story here).

I find this remarkable. If you had asked her a few years ago what her dream was, what she envisioned her life to become, she couldn't have imagined to be where she is today. I'm no different. If you had told me what was going to happen in my life in the recent years, I would ask if you were high. We don't believe our dreams can become reality. The scary truth is that they can. You just need faith and courage, a simple combination but simultaneously the most powerful one.

Like my friend had the faith it would work out, the courage to act on her dream, next week she will be in the beautiful, breath-taking Thailand. That could be any of us. The moment we stop justifying why things aren't the way we want it, the second we give ourselves a chance and have the courage, you realise life flows beautifully.

By no means am I saying that life doesn't have its challenges. It does. It's these challenges along the way, however, that help us develop the courage to reach that dream. It's these challenges that test our faith, and give us the determination to work harder to make it happen. Life wasn't made to be easy. Life, the biggest gift we have, is the most beautiful journey we could embark on; where some days we travel on some rocky roads, and others we have a taste of paradise.

There's a moment in everyones life that we stop justifying and start acting. So, when was the last time you fought real hard to make that dream of yours become true?

Saudade

To say I miss Brazil or my year abroad would be doing injustice to my feeling. The best way, and only way, I can explain the sentiment of leaving somewhere that you love is by saying I feel saudade.

Saudade (Portuguese, no direct translation to English) is a word with a heavy sentimental value. Commonly, saudaude is used to refer to a deep emotional state of nostalgia of an absent something/someone that one loves. The beauty of this word is that it isn't linked with "missing" or "suffering". Instead, when you have saudade you think back dearly on that person/something with a warm feeling; a happiness and gratitude that you were able to experience those moments.

With everything in life, you have a beginning, a middle and end. Each stage has it's sweet taste and we (I certainly do) sometimes forget to appreciate it as it lasts. We are so worried about the future that we forget the present, and then we are left with saudade - something my last two months in Brazil are prime example of. Instead of savouring every beautiful moment that life unfolded in-front of me, I was worried about what life was going to bring to me. I don't think many people enjoy facing the end of an cycle, and I'm not any different. I avoid it like the plague. And now that I have had to close that cycle, cross this bridge (and travel oceans), I look back at those (bitter)sweet moments with an overwhelming feeling of saudade.

I remember in my early days in Brazil feeling home-sick, out of my depth and lost. Little did I know that in a couple of months I would meet people who soon became like family to me. Little did I know that as I was scared to leave my home-comforts in the UK, I would be travelling and moving to some-where that quickly felt like I was born there. Little did I know that the culture I had at times difficulty understanding, would be the one I identified the most with. And so now, when I look back at how it worked out, how I managed to face all my fears and difficulties, I look back at it with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and saudade.

It is this saudade that gives me the courage to continue to face my fears and reach my dream, because it is this saudade that shows me that life always happens for the best - even if at the time it really does not feel like it.