BTAM: Home

I came back from home less than a month ago. My dad was diagnosed with a severe heart condition and I went there to support him and the rest of the family on the surgery. It was late August when I found out, and in less than 48 hours I was in Toronto, killing eight hours of endless time  before my next flight. Eight hours is a lot when your mind works feed by anxiety and emotions.

Two years ago, shortly after I began my journey in Canada, my parents moved from the small condo I lived almost my entire life into a larger house, in what could be called the suburbs, which are quite endless considering the size of Buenos Aires. The moving, my trip. For a nostalgic person like me, those two events drew a line in my life. Youth was comming to an end; adulthood was inevitable.

When I landed for the first time in Toronto's airport I had nothing but a backpack, a girlfriend and some money. We lived there two months before moving to Winnipeg. Sorry, I don't have a picture at the CN Tower. I never climbed it; but I will remember those times with this sort of chest pump I felt while we walked on Spadina, looked where to live or when I saw a raccoon for the first time. I've been in Toronto three times since then, just for a few hours as a passenger in transit, and every time a strange nostalgia invades. That transition point makes me think about home.

Argentinians are very bounded to their family.Something we despise and take pride at the same time. Many people told me how jealous they are of what I'm doing. But when I ask them if they were really willing to do something like this, excuses and hazy commitments anchor them to our homeland.

Travelling back home, something funny happened to me while I was flying the last track of my trip: I didn't know if I was supposed to speak to the air hostess in English or Spanish. I felt awkward in either ways. And I remembered what a Canadian friend of mine told me: You never go back home.

Home for me will be grandma's toasted bread after school and afternoons playing at the boulevard. Once, I accidentally threw a rock into a friend's head. It was part of the game, swear. Sorry. But, I should never complain about childhood, since I have been raised with love.

After a nineteen hours flight, and a frugal dinner and sat down with my old man. As the older of two siblings, it was implied that my personality will collide with my father's. And who knows why: maybe it was the situation, or the fact I've been living abroad, or just the pass of time, but for once we had a man-to-man conversation. I listened him, he listened me. In the end, I felt that there was an implicit agreement that out of the two brothers, I was the one who was more like him. It was good to be back home.