a letter, but hopefully not a goodbye

Manu! ❤️

I just had to write you a response, because I might struggle to say these things in person, but writing comes easier to me. It’s such a shame we didn’t get to see each other all year and now only for a couple of days to say goodbye. I’ve been thinking a lot about this, the blessing and the curse of LCT life, meeting the most wonderful people for a brief period of time and then going our own separate ways. But we can only hope that we’ve left a good mark in each other’s lives, and for the two of us, and our whole LCT batch in Donostia, I know that we will be friends for life now.

It was so heartwarming to read about all these little things that you’ve noticed about me, some moments I had even forgotten myself. And I’m genuinely so happy that you’ve been benefitting from some therapy - I also happen to be a hopeless romantic and my poor therapist has heard about it for too long but we can always use some help to mend our broken hearts. Starting therapy was also something I did thanks to how casually my friends in Brazil talked about it, and I’m glad I’ve managed to pass that on to someone else. It’s quite incredible how these moments listening to someone with a very different life can have such an impact on yours.

I understand what you meant about being shy to talk to Martin and Nastya. To be honest, coming from Brazil, I’ve had my fair share of culture shocks in Europe, and sometimes it can be very lonely to not have anyone to relate to about this. Nastya has actually been a relief - she comes from a very simple background in Russia and we often discuss our culture shocks with just how rich it seems that normal people can be in this continent. I hope you have found friends like this too, that you can talk to about these things, and just overall, who match your vibe. I hope all of these people you’ve met here, including me, have helped you realize what an extremely cool person you are.

I found it very mature of you to acknowledge like this that we operate on different social wavelengths, and that it’s okay - I still very much enjoy it when we hang out together and I hope we will stay in touch (through Instagram or anything!) and catch up every once in a while. Keep posting stories and reacting to mine! It always makes me happy to see what you’ve been up to. And I love following you on LinkedIn and plan on commenting about all of your accomplishments; you have such a brilliant future ahead of you regardless of what you choose to do with your degrees.

I hope that this is not a goodbye but a “see you again!”, somewhere, somewhen. I hope we’ll both make it to our graduation and then we get to hang out for a week again and celebrate life and LCT. Enjoy your last couple of weeks in Europe and have a safe trip back home. It’s been an absolute pleasure to get to know you.

P.S. To react to messages with different emojis on Instagram, just click on the message and hold and then you can choose :)

Love,
Júlia