Coming Home

People are always asking me complicatedly frustrating questions, like:

“Where do you live?” or

“When are you coming home?”

Where I live varies. Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Barra, Sao Jose, Cantagalo, in the favela are all possible answers. More often then not though, I’m not exactly sure where I’m going to lay my head.

This fell on me when I came home as no one 

thought to inform me that they broke it!

Currently I am living in Curitiba, in a house filled with entirely too much testosterone and not enough doors… well NO bedroom doors really. I sleep on a used mattress, with no sheets, thrown on a broken bedframe that was left behind by the previous owners.  The frame slops down in the middle, so through out the night I’m constantly sliding down towards the other end of the bed where I found just enough space in between the flimsy wooden wall and my mattress to shove my suitcase. Common sense would see it fit to throw the broken frame out and put the mattress on the floor, but the upstairs of the house is mad entirely of wood, and there are definitely some things living in between the floorboards that I would rather distance myself from as much as possible. There is no light socket in the room so I run an extension cord from the other room.

Note: I am not that tragic that I cannot buy sheets. I had sheets before but everything here is so damp and the boys don’t take care of anything so there is mold. A LOT of fucking mold. EVERYWHERE! I will get sheets next week (although it will probably involve a couple hours of walking).

My room, ok maybe it is that tragic.

So, where do I live? Right now, in Curitiba. I’ve been back for a day and I’ve just found out that this might be my last month here. Apparently Mestre is moving to Rio das Ostrias, somewhere in the state of Rio, north of the actual city.

What does that mean for me? Well frankly I have no clue. Next month I will go back to Rio to train  for IBJJF Brazilian Nationals that will take place at the end of April in Sao Paulo.

Afterwards, I’m not sure what I’ll do or where I’ll go.

But for once, I know when I’m coming home….

They say coming home, but I call it going back.

When I first moved to Brazil my plan was to stay here for 6 months. A year at the most. Then I was supposed to come home and fight for my team, MiKiDo. “tear up the east coast” or something like that.

Now 3 years later I’m still here.

People ask me all the time when I’m coming back and I never have an answer.

“When I feel like it”, never flies with anyone! But now, the stars have aligned and for circumstances out of my control, I have found a reason that I need to be back in the U.S.

It’s always been a hard decision, as I don’t really want to be back. I’d love to visit and to see my family, but staying there… that’s a whole different story.  And no one understands that.

Going back terrifies me. Everyone expects me to come back three years later and pick up were I left off teaching and training and doing normal 1^st world things like going to happy hour and shopping for pointless shit. To them it may be normal, but to me, it would be a monumental failure.

So in July I’m going back. Afterwards, I’m not sure what I’ll do or where I’ll go.

Closest to family I've been for awhile