Today is a day packed with a lot of intense emotions, like most of the days of this previous week, but I guess that today I might be a bit more susceptible to the events happening around me.
Exactly one year ago I arrived in Bonn for the internship that gave birth to this blog, which implies that tomorrow will be exactly one year from the day I started working at Deutsche Telekom. This is in itself reason enough to experience a lot of emotions, but there is something else that has me were I stand...
I had a talk with someone who is very dear to me once, and she said something about celebrating those special dates in your life when special things often happen and it is not about celebrating anniversaries or birthdays. It is about celebrating dates in which for some unknown reason your life usually changes.
I have at least 3 of those dates in my life.
One of them is the 13th of January (which also happens to be the birthday of one of my closest friends). On the 13th of January 2008 I left Costa Rica towards Japan to participate in SWY, and on the same date two years later I was accepted to do an internship at Deutsche Telekom.
May 23rd is another one. I know I was born on that date so it seems a bit contradicting that I am including my own birthday on my list of special days if birthdays are special for most people but I have a different reasons beyond the traditional birthday cake and presents to regard this date as a common turning point in my life. Back in 2001 I was celebrating my birthday and got into a fight during the morning with my brother that then I later took with me to school, where I... well lets just say I messed up. My mess earned me a 3 day suspension from school and a year on "probation". This event shaped much of my high-school experience and a great part of who I am in both positive and negative ways (if I was there, I would do it again). A few years later, in 2003, I started my first relationship on May 23rd. The relationship lasted about 10 months ( the mess lasted a lot longer) and even if it could be regarded by many as a simple high-school romance it meant a lot at the time and I believe it had a great influence on what came later.
So, why am I'm regarding the 14th of March as a new inflection point?
Well since life has a sense of humor I will start working on my new job tomorrow, exactly one year after I started working at DT.
Which takes me back to were I began. Today I am not only dealing with all the memories and the saudade of Bonn, my friends and my life there, I'm also dealing with the memories and the saudade of the world I left here in Costa Rica before my departure and to which I shall never return; besides that, I'm handling all the expectations and the excitment about starting a new phase of my life and my new job and if these wasn't enough, I am extremely worried about my friends in Japan. I know this last issue is the biggest one and it is the one the worries me the most and I can do nothing but pray for them and their families, so I do pray.
I am very thankful about my time in Germany (Europe), which was both harsh and pleasing at the same time. Without it, I wouldn't be who I am today and I really like most of who I am now and I feel very proud of some of the things I achieved there. Besides I got to meet lost of amazing (and lots of not so amazing) people who taught me a lot and with whom I shared a lot of wonderful memories. With some I managed to forged really strong friendships, I also had the chance to get closer with old friends and to share with people I had been meaning to meet with for a long time. How I value of all of this, I cannot explain.
Now I am very excited to be back, to phase the new challenges coming ahead. Even if the saudade takes hold of me every once in a while, even if I miss how some things were or some people here and there, I will walk on and greet the unknown with a smile.
