He believed that outside something more important he expected, he played background, and returned to Argentina to settle his debt

Felipe left Argentina at 25, after planning his trip in detail for two years. With so much premeditation, nor could he realize that I was actually elucidating a flight. If someone had asked him why hubs? He would have looked perplexed, and answered that he had always been curious, that only an adventure was going to live and that in a year he would be back.

The idea, in fact, had not even been his, but his dear sister, who had gone to work in New Zealand and told him wonders of life in Australia. And he, who had always liked to travel, seemed an excellent idea to replicate his experience, why not? Only the faculty remained and save strong to pay the visa and the passages. He did so, and said goodbye with peace of mind of his family and friends, with the serenity that causes to announce: `In a year I return´.

And then the flight began.

The first indication came before leaving, when in Felipe the need to leave nothing emerged, even despite knowing (or believing) that he would return. He sold each and every one of his things, needed to feel the lightness of a new beginning, without past loads that called him silently.

The little that remained put him in a backpack and left without having an idea of ​​what the future could hold him, but eager to move, almost shake his life: “I also went for a feeling of stagnation, I felt that I had more important things than to live than the mere fact of making a career in a job, marrying me, and buying a house, there was something more important that I was waiting for me ”, Reflect today while reviewing its story.

`And now what? After an entire plane day, the only thing there was uncertainty. Felipe looked around bewildered, he had to get where to live and a job, all in English and dominated by that feeling of estrangement of the newcomer. For a week he did nothing, he just observed and sought to acclimatize to such a radical change, especially to come from a town of 5,000 inhabitants of northern Entre Ríos.

“When I realized I was already working, it was all very fast and simple, I started developing a routine, and I ended up spending seven months very comfortable with a very pleasant job, until for reasons of the visa I had to move to the north of the country, ”he says.

Along the way, however, fate had other plans. Felipe was in the middle of his transfer to his new place, when the pandemic surprised the world. Unexpectedly, ended up in a small town in the middle of nowhere, where he soon got a job and was able to lead an ordinary life, away from all the restrictions imposed by Covid.

Without the need to leave the town that had found him randomly, Felipe felt full, he was thousands of kilometers from his house, in remote Australia, alone and in the middle of a worldwide pandemic: «But it was very good,» he confesses. “I felt that if I could handle such a situation, and so it was that I lost many fears, and I encouraged, for the first time, to go after the search for my dreams ”, The Argentine continues, who had studied to be a chef, although he believes that it is a pretentious way to call the cook: «That is what I really consider,» he says.

“About a year later and when the pandemic was more controlled, I moved to an island in the Australian northwest. He had done a lot of research and seemed to be a place that had everything he wanted: amazing beaches, koalas, sea turtles, a lot of nature and tranquility. They were the best months of my life, it was like living in a dream, I worked tomorrow and the afternoon I went with my friends to the beach, The only concern he had was to get on time to see the sunset ”, He recounts.

Today Felipe believes that perhaps he was very ambitious, there, in paradise, he was possessed by good stimuli and hugged hard the energy he brought to continue traveling to a totally different destination and that aroused his curiosity: Italy, where he had intentions to process his citizenship.

Reaching his mission was not simple, and although he achieved his goal, his trip shook all his foundations, which little by little began to show their weaknesses: «It was very hard, a brutal change, I went from 100 to 0 in weeks.»

After dark times, he suddenly felt that he needed to return to his affections, to his land. He returned to Argentina and toured her, hugged his own and spent time with them, but it wasn’t enough, he didn’t fill him, he had become accustomed to loneliness: he overwhelmed him.

“I decided to return to Australia, I went with other expectations and my experience was totally different. As soon as I arrived I was determined to look for a job that offered me a sponsors to access a permanent residence, Australia is the country of opportunities, if you will be to get something you will get it, there governs the law of effort. I went to Sydney, assuming that it was going to be easier to get what I was looking for, but it was not so, not for lack of opportunities, but for an internal lack of motivation, I could not connect with my desire. A little frustrated and already short of savings, I decided to return to the island. One always returns to where he was happy, they say. ”

On the island, away from the ghosts, for a while everything was happiness. The permanent residence in Australia was almost discarded and decided that all that remained was to relax and enjoy the day to day. Felipe worked just to pay his expenses, save the minimum and make the most of his outdoor time: «Looking turtles eat algae on the beach, snorkeling among the corals or leaving walking to see Koalas climbed in the eucalyptus,» he recalls.

They were good times, although it was not the same. The friends Felipe had done in the past were gone and he was no longer the same. However, their sisters and brothers -in -law had decided to move to Australia for a season and lived together on the island, where the young man introduced them to the lifestyle.

“Everything was calm, but internally I felt that something was not right, I had a leak somewhere that I prevented me from feeling really full, I felt that I was looking at my life through a frosted glass, I was feeling stagnant again, as I felt before starting. While I was not aware at that time, inside I thought that everything had been a failure, it had gone through a thousand things and in the end I returned to the beginning, to feel in the same way, Where was happiness? Where were the afternoons of magical sunsets? Where was that `most important thing» that I was supposedly waiting for me outside?

Where is what I am waiting for? The question continued to dance in Felipe’s head, when his sisters moved to Sydney and he decided to follow them. That was where everything ended up collapsing. As lost as before, as soon as his body came completely, the accumulation of repressed stress and anxiety passed them. Fortunately, he got an entire home for him and his whole family and there, with the tranquility of the absence of strangers, he felt safe to play background: «And so I spent months, with tremendous depression, without working or leaving the house,» confesses.

Felipe decided to resume therapy and, little by little, the days dawned clearer. At the time he returned to work, he was able to clear his mind and return to a routine. A year later, already more stable, he continued to travel only towards the unknown. He immersed himself in the nature and tranquility of Tasmania, southern Australia, where he worked in a Lodge located in an iconic national park.

“I connected with nature again, I was surrounded by mountains, demons from Tasmania, Ornitorrincos and all kinds of marsupials, in the winter with the snow I felt in a Disney movie, and the clear nights could come to see Australis Auroras. The experience I had in that place was incredible, spending ten months in the middle of nowhere was as challenging as gratifying. He took his time but I was able to feel whole, to feel in control. ”

And when he felt in control, Felipe finally woke up at all and knew what he should do.

In the first years of our childhood they normally educate us according to the convictions of the people who joined the way to form a family. Depending on the possibilities, they decide in which neighborhood we are going to live and what school we are going to attend and, therefore, they insert us at their will in the environment in which we are going to move during our years of training. For all these reasons each of us is built; It is inevitable that this destiny imposed by third parties influences our vision of society and the world, as well as our fears, our strengths, our deficiencies and our trends when drawing our own future.

And that built world sometimes hides secrets, pain, anguish and hopelessness. Thus, one day we wake up with the feeling that it is time to leave, to leave behind the ordinary life felt that we feel alien. But can you run away forever?

What happens when it is time to return to that place we fled because it loaded too many wounds? On the return it is where the true story usually begins and, therefore, Felipe today is in Argentina, after understanding that it was time to close circles in order to build the complete picture of his identity.

“I really wanted to return, I felt that I had many pending things, now I am facing many of them, I realized that when I left I had escaped many things that, in a way, They were the ones that had pushed me to go: conflicts, relationships, traumas, fears. ”

“Today I am facing them, I got tired of escaping And also the desire I had to return were just to face all this that I was waiting for me, because I also knew they were not going to go anywhere. I am in full planning stage about my future, about whether to leave or if to stay and what to do with my life. With many tools and tranquility, putting into practice everything I learned these years, but at the same time with fear and caution, ”continues Felipe.

“I think that the greatest learning of all this is that it does not matter how many tools one has in life, if you cannot use them, they do not help you, Already reverse too, sometimes it takes less than one believes to make things work. Today I am in a stage of total introspection, thoroughly analyzing who I am and where I want to go, giving me all possible space and time, not to put together a perfect future or to get something great, but to be more present and live the day to day, understanding that what comes is what it will be, I just need to be satisfied with my present, and if I do not like it, move and continue trying. Clearly, it is easier to say it than to do it, but there we are going. ”

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By Carina Durn