I have gone from happiness to sadness to disbelief to embarrassment (and) to excitement. More than ever before have I become aware of the bubble of which I live in, in which I think, most of us or at least a lot of us live in. And I have found them in so many different places; from small matters to embarrassingly huge matters.
Mostly I have been noticing what is lacking in this world is what I am lacking myself. Let’s share, let’s talk. Let’s open our goddamn eyes. Be aware, be active. Let’s participate. Help. I don’t know, give more fucks in general.
I think, never before have I felt more of an outsider and not simply because I am a foreigner here. But because of the bubble we live in. “Shit, shit. Things can be real shit.” I have found myself needing to repeat this fact to myself. So, at least, even if it is only to myself, it is heard. It’s known. It’s not swept under the rug.
It’s like battling two thoughts in my mind. The first one being, finding it hard to swallow the feeling of how lucky I am. It’s like ‘Yep, I have been real goddamn lucky simply because of where I was born’. The second one being ‘Stop whining about it. Stop feeding it.’ Like, oh no my life’s real hard over here, having these clashing thoughts. I find it difficult to write about it or even think about it too much. Because I end up telling myself; stop the whining.
Recently I wrote ‘Life is really incredible’. I think never before did four words arouse such a clash inside my mind. Because one, I need to remind myself of how good my life is. Because my life really is fucking incredible. My heart is screaming ‘be fucking thankful and aware of how incredible life is’. And two, I feel so embarrassingly lucky because of it.
Arriving in São Paulo was a reality check. I don’t even know how to begin to describe the city. I learned São Paulo is the biggest city of the whole entire southern hemisphere and I think that simple fact might describe it best. Looking back at it now, São Paulo was a mixture of lots of noise, lots of people and lots of graffiti. But also the place where the thoughts I had been having were given space to be spoken out loud. A place where I felt like there was room for real talk, no nonsense.
IJsselvrouw 