So things were not easy. At the end of my first year in Portugal, I was on a speed train heading towards burnout. Two jobs, one master’s degree, and a contest. I wanted to improve my chances in the future by gaining better exposure while satisfying my creativity through an Innovation challenge, where we placed 3rd. 

It was a fun project I could enjoy with my friends from Uni, and also had a great moment I could share with my sister; I pitched in a crowded auditorium, the event was broadcast online, so my friends and family could see me shining, I had my nuts on my neck, it felt great after all, overcoming my fear of public speaking, and I don’t want to sound cooky, but I looked great on the stage and the screen.

How did I manage to have time and energy to do all of this at the same time?

You know, not sleeping doesn’t count as waking up early every day, but let’s say I woke up early every day. I “negotiated” with my friends, so we split tasks across the projects we were working on simultaneously. My main project was the Innovation contest because I loved it and wanted to face my fear of public speaking. Just 3 out of 15 teams would have the chance to do it; we made it, and my sister was visiting me. It was one of my favorite moments in life.

My sister is here!

In 2019, she was doing a Master’s in Barcelona, which was the worst year of my life. I visited her at the end of the summer, we made a 3-week trip around Europe, and it was an oasis in the desert. I was depressed as fuck, but that trip gave me hope and sparked the curiosity to come to live in Europe. It was lovely, 5 years later, I was the host. I was super busy, though, but you always have time for what is important in Life.

I showed her my favorite places in Lisbon, and she explored the most touristy places on her own while I was working. We went to Fatima, Porto, Sesimbra, and Aveiro. A few months before, I went to Porto for the first time, and I didn’t feel well there; it was too cold, and I wasn’t in the mood. But this second time I enjoyed it more, good company matters.

At the end of her trip, she helped me with a reckless group project (luckily, none of my other friends were involved), and it was also a sweet moment; it felt like when I was in high school. At that time, I was living with my friends Steph and Francisco, who invited us to spend the weekend close to Sesimbra. They went before us because I had to present the reckless project.

I was rushing everything because I wanted my sister to enjoy as much as she could in the little time she had. When we left, I didn’t lock the door because we are in Portugal, I mean, it’s not Colombia, this is a safe country, right? We went to Sesimbra, had a great Saturday with my friends, had lunch at Lobo de Mar, one of my favorite seafood restaurants in Portugal, I got a bubblegum ice cream, and we had an amazing time. The next morning, Steph received a call from the landlord; thieves tried to get into the apartment next door.

What are the odds this happened that weekend? Now it makes me laugh; no matter how safe a country is, crime is everywhere. Actually, a couple of months after I arrived in Lisbon, I was in a restaurant close to my University where a fight ended up in a gunshot; nobody was hurt or killed. That’s a story for another day. Coming back to this time, fortunately, the thieves didn’t try our door; the neighbors were at home, so the thieves got scared and ran away. Our home was safe. This was just another story to tell. Never mind.

My sister is my best friend. Saying goodbye this time was harder than it was when I left Colombia. 

“Oh no, here we go again.”

After this refreshing visit, Life kept moving forward. More challenges and issues came. My energy was getting lower every day, and I didn’t feel like all these efforts were paying off. I had the great luck to have my best friends here a few times, but the last time I was simply not there. There were days when I had no will or power to get out of bed. I didn’t want to carry on anymore. I wanted to pause time and sleep longer, but I had sleep issues, so it wouldn’t have solved anything anyway. So, what else could I do? “Apriete y siga”. It was frustrating because this project was so fragile; if I gave up all these efforts would vanish without any result. I felt so powerless, and existentialism kicked in: What’s the meaning of all of this shit?

So, giving up was just words trying to become an intention that didn’t happen; it is impossible for me to give up. I struggled finishing my thesis, I really wanted to do something meaningful and important, but my energy couldn’t match my expectations, my performance couldn’t match my pride and ego, my pride and ego if they were a third person and could speak they would say nothing, there was nothing else I could do better than I was doing; a car without gas being pulled by gravity.

This part of the chapter is very important to highlight, because when you reach this stage of burnout, you can’t feel the real dimension of things. You don’t realize some things are bad for you, and you keep them, or vice versa. I hurt someone important to me because I couldn’t see beyond. I was hurting myself without noticing, and allowed fears and pressure to take control; I was in a loop of tiredness.

Colombia, a short parenthesis.

I have plenty of reasons to leave Colombia. But this trip made me make peace with my home country. A bath of humility. The place I had almost hated for so long became my shelter at this time. I named this chapter “a short parenthesis” because it felt a bit like my trip to Malta, which was a true parenthesis in my life.

Read: Malta: a Parenthesis on my Life

I went because one of my best friends was getting married. Most of us live abroad, and he planned it close to Christmas so we could all make that trip back home worthwhile. December in Colombia is a party; it is the most expected guest, and the entire month is full of reasons to gather with your loved ones, celebrate, and chill.

The wedding was in Santa Marta, this city has a meaning to me, maybe a coincidence, but every single time I have been there, my Life was at a twist point.

Read: My first solo travel – Tayrona

I could write a post just about this party; it was insane. The entire weekend was amazing, my High school friends and I together, as if time never passed, this time with some new family members, creating new memories that paid tribute to old great experiences we had together in the past.

After the wedding, I spent a week in my hometown, where I could meet other friends and relatives. I was still working, so my time was short, but sweet. But definetly the best of all of this was spending time with my parents. Getting time to enjoy my morning coffee with my dad, having conversations I’ve not had with my mom in my life.

By the way, this trip allowed me to realize that my healing process has come to a fantastic outcome; I love my mom, now I do, and I could express all of this to her, my admiration and respect.

And last but not least, after 4 or 5 years, I had the chance to see my brother again. He lives in México. He arrived a day before New Year’s Eve, and I was living on January 1st. We spent New Year’s Eve together, he taught my Dad and me how to drink Mezcal, and I loved it. It was great, that night triggered a lot of emotions in me; I felt this could be the last time we could spend together as a family; My parents are already old, my brother doesn’t go often to Colombia, and I was unaware of when I would come back, not in my short-term plans.

My brother has a dark sense of humor, darker than mine, and he deals with emotions in a different way (Maybe he doesn’t handle them at all). The next day, before they drove me to the airport, we were having lunch together, having a nice conversation, the type of lunch time I dreamt of when I was a kid, and our family was broken. I looked around and couldn’t hold my tears. My brother looked at me and said out loud, “If I don’t see it (me crying), it’s not happening “ in a way of telling; “Dude, don’t make me cry.” I laughed because this is so him.

This trip to Colombia was amazing, I received a lot of love and affection, tasted the warmth that everyone around the world speaks about us Colombians, the weather was amazing, my veins full of aguardiente antioqueño, fat from chicharron and patacones.

Lisbon, my home.

I was happy to be back; it truly felt like home. But coming back in January, cold weather, lonely. It was a shocking contrast. And life kept moving fast. The burnout was getting worse, and now I was actively searching for another job because I couldn’t build a life while living in survival mode.

I almost got a job, just what I needed; I went through the entire process. Rejected at the end. At this moment, I have finally surrendered; I let it be, stop looking for anything, and set a deadline: I will finish my thesis in the upcoming months, and after that, I will figure it out. 

After I said I surrendered, Portugal and Spain faced a massive power outage. One Monday in April, we had no internet, no mobile connection, no electricity. I had no cash, no food in the fridge, no relationship with my 5 flatmates, just a bottle of chip Gin from Aldi (God bless Aldi and Lidl, God bless Germans). I wasn’t paid because I didn’t work that day. So, did I surrender? After that day, I truly did. I felt like nothing mattered; it was impossible to be lower and lonelier than this. At least, the sky was clear, the sunset was gorgeous, and I could appreciate the thousands of visible stars over Lisbon.

It’s funny how Life works: things come when you are okay not having them, when you are not expecting them anymore. 2 months after this rejection, this company reached out to see if I was still interested, and I was. They gave me the job. This brought a new source of stress because I didn’t have one document that took me almost 3 months to get, so I didn’t receive any income in 2 months, and I almost got fired because of this, and yeah, I haven’t finished my thesis at that time, and the deadline was around the corner.

During New Year’s Eve, I asked Life for many things: to find my tribe, to find new hobbies, to earn more money, to enjoy traveling around Europe, and to make more things. And I was simply not ready. But I didn’t know that until I met my new “family”.

To be continued:

The more I write, the more I leave out. This experience has been intense, so summarizing it’s tough, this probably will take another 2 posts to paint the overall picture of how my first years in Portugal were.

Spoiler alert: Summer of 25 brought better times, and I could start living, finally. A time to breathe, to process everything that has happened in the last year and a half, for closure on some chapters, to look back and recognize myself, this was hell of a ride, and it’s not over.

Disclaimer: I don’t mention everyone involved due to image rights and privacy. I’m sharing people who won’t sue me (?) But I wanted to give special thanks to Steph, Francisco, Georgie, Caitlin, Andi, Valeria, Rafa, Rita, Trovao, and Yuri, and some many others who were there. I’m not sure they will read this post anyway, but in case they do, they will know 🙂