“Years from now, years and years, I’ll be back… me and my nine Brazilian brats. I’ll bring them back alright, cause they must see this. Oh, I love New York.”
Do you ever get that feeling where you’re Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Unfortunately, most people don’t. Then again, I don’t know many people besides myself and Holly Golightly, Hepburn’s character, who are going to Brazil… but then again, not many people can say they’re going to live in New York right after. It makes me think sometimes, am I more excited to live in Brazil or New York?
I guess when I think about it, I’m a lot like Holly Golightly. 1) We’re always traveling. 2) We have this strange feeling of always not belonging to anything or anyone. 3) We’re always looking for “home.” I can honestly say I don’t know what to call “home” anymore or what to call “mine.” When I lived in Italy just last year, I pondered — how I could go back “home,” if Italy was my “home.” I wondered — who did I belong to if I considered my host mom and brother to be my family, but then, I have another one back home. It felt like an identity crisis. There was this strange feeling inside of me that forgot who I was. I might never know who I truly am. I guess that’s the meaning of life, to find and understand yourself.
On another note, it seems a bit all-too-familiar, the last few months before I go abroad, again. But this time, I’m not scared of the things I was afraid of right before I left for Italy. I’m not worried about the superficial things like if I’ll become fluent in Portuguese or if my host family will like me or if I’ll like Brazil. Instead I ask the question, will I find the one true place where I belong in Brazil? It feels like a strange blend of maturity and immaturity that I now find myself facing.
