También podés leer la versión en castellano.
My teenage years were economically ordinary. Although I had everything I needed, my parents struggled to make ends meet, most of you can relate to that. What I found most difficult about it was going to school with kids whose families were better off than mine and lived in the wealthier neighborhoods of the city. That meant that when I met my classmates on Saturday afternoons to play football in the park, it was on the rich side of the town.
After a few hours of kicking the ball around, we’d all pitch in to get the biggest bottle of pop we could find at the corner store. Hanging out on a curb, smelling like teenagers do after sports, we’d pass the bottle around and shoot the shit. They were typical conversations for 14-year-olds: girls, teachers, homework, TV, football, and more girls. As the sun went down and the temperature dropped, we’d say our goodbyes, and I’d head to the number 67 bus stop and go home.
Because it was late Saturday afternoon, the buses weren’t busy, and I’d get a seat by the window. As we crossed through the posh part of town, I’d look at the kempt parks, the clean sidewalks, the expensive shops and art galleries, the five-star hotels, the well-dressed men and women, and the kids wearing outfits that cost the same as my entire wardrobe of hand-me-downs.
It was such a different reality from mine that it felt like I was watching a TV show as I made my way home. I wasn’t jealous; I enjoyed it, in the same way we enjoy watching a movie about an aristocratic family on the Upper East Side. I looked at it in an aspirational way, knowing at the same time that it was completely out of reach. I daydreamed that I belonged, and it made me hopeful for my future.
That dream stuck with me, but by the time I reached my 20s, the country was in the middle of a historic social, political, and economic crisis. If that life seemed far away when I was a kid, by now it might as well have been on another planet. But when you’re twenty-something, with your whole life ahead of you, you want to give your dreams a shot. If I wanted to live a wealthy life, in a nice apartment, driving an expensive car, wearing expensive clothes, and with a family that wouldn’t have a care in the world, it was going to be elsewhere. Like thousands of young people in my generation, I decided to try my luck and migrated to a rich country in the north.
That was almost 25 years ago, and I still live in Europe, far away from my hometown. I can’t complain. Although I didn’t become a captain of industry or a rich techpreneur, I’ve done well for myself. I’m also lucky enough to be able to go back home every year and visit my city and family. Thanks to favorable exchange rates and North/South salary differences, when I visit, I don’t have to worry too much about money. I decided to treat myself, and the last time I went, I rented a place in that same neighborhood I used to watch pass by as I rode the bus when I was a kid. Although I was a tourist, I now sort of belonged. My dream had come true.
As my visit came to an end, the last day I went for a stroll to find a place for breakfast. It would be my last chance to go to a cafe and sit by the window while I quietly took in this city that, after all these years, I can’t stop missing. As I made my way through the streets, I felt an acute perceptiveness. I noticed the gold plating adorning the buildings, the marble entrances, the stiff doormen. I could even smell the leather from the building’s luxurious foyer furniture that nobody ever uses. Around me were men and women in their casual-chic designer clothing, and dog walkers dragged by a dozen purebreds of all shapes and sizes.
It felt different from when I was a teenager. The longing to belong wasn’t there anymore. Don’t misunderstand me, I didn’t feel animosity either. A quarter of a century had passed, and I had just changed. Expensive cars, luxury brands, and industrial quantities of Botox just weren’t my thing. This wasn’t my dream anymore. Although I like a comfortable life, my dreams have now shifted toward a lifestyle of being, rather than a lifestyle of having.
A subtle sense of sadness and disappointment took hold of me as I sat down and ordered a coffee—a realization that I had spent almost 25 years far from family and friends, from my culture and my city. Over those years, I had missed many Christmases and countless birthdays. I wasn’t with my brothers and sisters when their children were born, and I wasn’t there to see how my nephews and nieces grew up. I didn’t get to go to the celebrations when my football team won the championship, and I missed dancing on the streets when the country won the World Cup. I lost the chance to see my mother grow old, and I wasn’t there to support my siblings while they cared for her as she died.
Of course, it wasn’t all bad. If I hadn’t left, there would have been so much I wouldn’t have done. I wouldn’t have experienced living in different cultures and learning foreign languages. I wouldn’t have met people from different places and backgrounds that I’ve learned so much from. I wouldn’t be sharing my life with a wonderful person, in a relationship I can only refer to as a cosmic miracle.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling of having missed so much in the pursuit of a childhood dream which, after giving it a closer look, wasn’t mine. It was a dream of material wealth and luxury that’s drilled into us at our most vulnerable time: when we’re children. With that realization came an understanding that I’m not special. This didn’t only happen to me. All the time we tell kids to follow their dreams, but we forget to tell them that they have to create their own dreams. That dreaming, for real, is hard work and requires imagination. How much are we missing as a society because we’re lazy or asleep, collectively chasing dreams that were created for us instead of by us?
There’s a way out of this trap. It requires a Moral shift. A redefinition of wealth, where the rich side of town is where there’s an abundance of meaning rather than an abundance of things. That’s a dream worth going to bed for.
This is great. It’s vulnerable and insightful. I love how you offer your answers to life’s questions at the end of your posts. It feels rewarding, like each ending answers the question asked at the beginning.
I’d always dreamed of being a “famous” musician someday. As I worked the industry, my ideals became fleshed out, and eventually that was no longer the goal. Fame ≠ success, and vice versa. That’s all superficial, anyway.
But that’s what growing up in America teaches you (I can’t speak for other countries). Now, my dream is to be financially comfortable; to have a loving partner; to be a pillar of my community.
My dreams pushed me in the right direction, and I’m glad I chased them. It was only when I slowed down that I realized I was already there.
I loved this! As someone who also moved far away from her family & hometown at a very young age to chase a dream, it can be really painful when you go back & realise how much you’ve missed in your pursuit for something ‘better.’ But I think if you’d stayed, maybe you would have always regretted not getting out