The Adventures of a Millennial Expat
Today I decided to write about a topic that I have been wanting to write for a while, but somehow it seemed too difficult to put so many years of different experiences into words. I really wonder if some people, particularly expats and migrants will relate.
I left Portugal 7 years ago. When I left my country I was 18 and me and my best friend decided to embark in an adventure of going to study in London. Previously, we were both living in Braga, a small city (but one of the biggest in Portugal) and we were tired of living in a homogenous environment where everybody spoke the same language and had the same views of the world. We had barely seen snow in our lives and the only contact we had with foreign people was through a Comenius project we had in school for two years, where we went to countries like Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, France and Italy.
In our time, it was quite unusual to go study a BA degree in a foreign country, although it has become more and more common these days. I remember, the whole process of applying to university, English exams, trying to find accommodation, choosing an university, asking references to teachers, and all kinds of administrative challenges. We were so excited that finally we would manage to leave our boring country and we were more than prepared to finally explore the world.
First year was a sea of new experiences, things I never imagined I would live in my life. While there were many positive aspects, somehow, I also learned that not everything was as easy as we thought it would be, but we always managed to overcome challenges through hard-work and a feeling of hope that had always guided us.
London is an easy place to get lost if you don’t have an exact goal on your mind. I must say that for some time I really started to relate to sentences such as ‘live the moment’ and a ‘small party never killed nobody’, except that a small party everyday of the week probably would kill somebody. Gladly I came to the conclusion that I wanted more from my life than just instantaneous temporary happiness and that there was much more to life than living an ‘easy’ life.
After finishing my degree in Music Composition I realised that I would have many difficulties in working as a full time composer, unless I would be a teacher to earn my living, which I really did not want to be, so I decided to move to Germany. There, I had an immense cultural shock after living in the UK, I did not speak the language, I was lost in a culture that was much more than ‘daily parties’ and I saw myself obliged to be conscious about social and political aspects.
It was not difficult to recover from the shock but as we say in Portugal ‘tive de andar da perna.’ I learned the language, got very excited about politics and economics and decided to study a masters in European Studies. While on the first year of university I worked as an aupair full time, had to study double as everybody else, since everything was fully new for me, was living three hours away from university and had to sustain a long distance relationship. I must say it was hard, but that is when I realised the value of life and of the little small things you do. While in Germany, I won an award from the Portuguese government on my essay and was selected to go in Erasmus to Poland. I must say that these things really gave me the strength I needed not to stop.
I moved to Poland and once again, I did not speak the language, but at least this time I had already been in a similar situation. The first things that stroke me were the infrastructures that were ‘slightly’ worse than in Germany. I arrived in my room which was smaller than my toilet at my previous apartment and I saw that I would have to share it with a girl that I had no idea which kind of person she was. I met her and the first thing she said to me was ‘I don’t speak English’. My first instinct was ‘I’m going to take on the next flight back. I wanna go home!’ However, I had seen this reaction before, I knew that it was an instinct out of despair, so I decided to calm down and think rationally. I talked to this girl and discovered she spoke Spanish perfectly, so we talked for a long time and we got to know each other. The funny part was that she actually became one of my best friends. After a week I had already met a quite a lot of people and the city seemed much nicer to me.
After a month, I felt quite integrated and happy to be in Poland. It is a fact in life that things are never happily stable for a long time, so, after a while, my relationship deteriorated and I saw myself slightly lost in a country that did not belong to me. That was the moment when I realised that indeed ‘what doesn't kill you makes you stronger’. And that is what the situation did to me. I set myself the priority goal of working for Credit Suisse, since I really wanted to experience how it would be to work for a private corporation. That strength was like fire in my veins and I was recruited. Once I got in Credit Suisse, I must admit that I lived some of the happiest days of my life. I met amazing people in this company, started playing in a football team, got an amazing team leader and Head of department, amazing colleagues and felt very complete. I even managed to learn some Polish, what I learned was rather useless I must admit, but it gave me the feeling somehow that I belonged.
Until the day I got a phone call, asking me if I wanted to work for the European Commission in Brussels. Knowing myself, I knew I had to take this, or I would regret it for the rest of my life. So, I moved to Brussels and got to know the true reality of how it is to work for the EU institutions. I must admit that there were many positive aspects, but also some unfortunate ones. I will not enter into detail, because this is a topic of its own. I will just say that I had to debate my consciousness and ethical ground on whether I should be a ‘Yes, Man’ person or not. I decided that I would never be someone like that, because most likely I would be fairly unhappy being this type of person. Nevertheless, my team was very amazing, I made many friends and met people that inspired me to work harder and be better.
After finishing at the European Commission, I decided to finally concentrate myself in my Master thesis and moved back to Germany, to live with my boyfriend, who made me believe that indeed life with someone is worth living far more than alone. Once in Germany, I was recruited to work in Brussels again, for a Civil Society organisation which advocates the EU institutions and other organisations in terms of policy making related to volunteering. Finally, I feel like I am doing a job that I really enjoy, but I also know I will have to overcome many more challenges.
That is when I realised, life is all about changes and the important part is how people respond to these changes. Once someone very wise told me ‘If you fall down, you get up again. It’s not on how many times you fall, it’s on how many times you get up.’ I guess I did fall a couple of times, but as long as I live I will always get up. The direction which I will go? I don’t know. The only thing that I do know is that I will never let my fears guide my decisions.
Regretting regrets is not something I would ever live up to.
