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.