Leaving

leave —Synonyms
1, 2. abandon, forsake, desert; relinquish. 9. forbear, renounce.10.

ignore, forget. 11. bequeath, will; devise, transmit.

(www.dictionary.com)

I thought today about the day I left Brazil to move to the U.S. for college. I had only packed two suitcases. I didn't want a lot of things. I was ready to leave. I was eager for change. I had been in a relationship for a year that had worn me out completely and had resulted in some strains with friends and family members when it ended badly on account of an infidelity on my part. I was tired of Brazil's sexism, danger, and lack of support for the arts. I had been in the same school for 14 years and I had never lived anywhere else. I wanted to get away, I wanted new friends, I wanted to act, I wanted my own life. With all this in mind, I thought it would be easy to leave.

When my dad said, "Ok, time to go to the airport," I ran to my room to get my bags. And then, as I looked at the room I had grown up in, with its purple pillows and white clouds painted on the blue ceiling, an understanding of what I was about to lose started to dawn on me. I took a deep breath and turned away from my room, not quite willing to get sad, but then saw the living room, with the big blue couch that my brother, my cousins, and I had sat on to watch movies thousands of times, always arguing for half an hour before deciding which film would win that day. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the guest room, where my brother and I slept (we each had our own rooms, but we liked to stay together at night, so we slept in the guest room because it had two beds and less mosquitos- I know, it's the cutest thing in the world). I couldn't fight the sadness away anymore, and I stood there for a few minutes taking it all in, and then my dad called me and said we had to go, so I whispered, "Good Bye" to my home, ran down the stairs and out the front door.

I sat in the car with my parents and my brother, my aunt and cousins in the car behind us, watching my city go by a little at a time, struggling with these feelings I hadn't expected to have.

The next thing I knew I was getting ready to board and was saying good bye to my family. I looked at my darling cousins, Ga and Toca, whom I had spent my life with, and as I hugged them I felt a part of myself being left behind. Then, I looked at my brother. My best friend and my favorite person in the world. What would Ferret do without her Waldo? We were two pieces that made a whole, we were Bu and Zu, Ferret and Waldo, La and Sa. I fell apart, and so did he. As we hugged and cried, and our whole family around us cried as well, we knew we were losing a part of our hearts. I touched my nose to his nose and said, "I love you little one". I turned around, my parents and I boarded, and I looked back only once, to wave good-bye and see them there, standing and waving, watching me go.

Snap. I felt my roots being cut from beneath my feet. I'd have to grow new roots now.

I cried the whole plane ride to New York. I had left my home and my family in a different continent. I wouldn't be there for their birthdays anymore, I wouldn't see them on the weekends for movies and milk-shakes, I wouldn't be near them when I was sick, I wouldn't hear my brother's voice before I went to bed every night, I wouldn't be able to share in their every-day lives, and, on a lighter note- but not that much lighter- I wouldn't be watching the World Cup in Brazil with my family and friends anymore.

My life was about to change, which was what I had thought I wanted.

Leaving Brazil was one of the hardest things I ever did. There was a loneliness that came with leaving that stayed with me ever since. Like a plant that has been moved from the earth on which it first grew, I have been able to grow new roots, but I have never forgotten where I came from and what my life was like then.

It's hard to leave home. It's hard to leave people. It's hard to leave our old selves. We are left a little bit more alone every time- making space for the new, but still knowing that in that space there used to something or someone else. I left that day knowing I would next return as a visitor in a place that held old memories but where I no longer created new ones.