TheGioBlog

i think i missed you long before i ever knew you.

and maybe this story starts much earlier than 2026.

much earlier than the shared house, the train stations, the freezing mornings, the walks home at night, or the feeling of knowing a city so well that eventually you stop looking at maps altogether.

i think it starts in childhood.

in the strange obsession i always had with england.

with london accents.

with british music.

with grey skies and rainy streets and old buildings and the idea of getting on a train and disappearing somewhere beautiful.

there was always something about it that felt familiar to me in a way i could never explain.

i would hear people speaking with london accents and feel something ache inside me.

like my body somehow recognized a place my life had not reached yet.

and maybe part of that came from my grandfather.

from his stories.

his experiences there.

the way england always existed around me even when it was an ocean away.

like this dream had been planted inside me too early to ever leave.

in 2017, when i left london for the first time, i cried at the airport.

not dramatically.

not loudly.

just quietly enough to feel embarrassed by how deeply i was grieving a place that technically had never belonged to me.

but somehow it already did.

i remember thinking:

i don’t want to leave.

i don’t belong far away from here.

and then nine years later, i came back.

and i don’t think i will ever forget the feeling of stepping onto british ground again.

because the girl who cried in 2017 still existed somewhere inside me.

the same girl who spent years listening to british accents, romanticizing london from thousands of miles away, wondering if she would ever return.

and when i did, i cried again.

but this time it was happiness.

relief.

the strange feeling of finally touching a life i had imagined for too long.

and cambridge changed everything.

because england stopped feeling like fantasy.

it became routine.

it became grocery shopping.

walking home in the cold.

memorizing streets.

having favorite cafés.

crossing the same bridges every day.

knowing shortcuts without checking my phone.

existing somewhere instead of simply visiting it.

and most importantly:

for the first time, i could actually imagine myself living.

i imagined children walking to school.

i imagined taking trains into greater london.

i imagined coming home from work while winter darkened the sky at four in the afternoon.

and for once, the future didn’t feel heavy.

it felt beautiful.

the people i met changed me just as much as the city itself.

my three argentinian friends became part of my life so naturally it felt impossible to remember a version of my days without them.

the conversations in mixed languages.

the laughter in the kitchen.

the feeling of being understood by people who came from somewhere completely different.

the sharing a room (a messy one) together from good night to good morning. 

you are the sisters i never had. always will. 

and then there was the chilean girl who felt almost like my twin.

some people enter your life and immediately mirror parts of you that you thought nobody else would understand.

the same humor, the same emotional intensity, the same way of seeing the world.

being around her felt strangely familiar, like finding another version of yourself in a country thousands of miles away from home.

the two brazilians carried familiarity inside their voices.

my baby brazilian girl, i could see myself in your eyes and loved seeing you so happy. 

little pieces of home inside a foreign country.

the turkish group became part of the experience in such a unique way too.

there were cultural differences everywhere, different habits, different rhythms, different ways of communicating, but that was exactly what made everything feel so alive.

and among them was one of the sweetest girls i met there, someone who made those differences try to be  comforting instead of distant.

living with people from places so different from mine taught me how beautiful it is to realize the world is much bigger than the version of it we grow up knowing.

meeting people from japan felt surreal to me.

japanese culture had already lived in my imagination for years before cambridge ever did.

and suddenly there i was, sharing ordinary moments with people from a country that once felt impossibly far away.

my french friends became part of this story too.

there is something comforting about knowing pieces of your life are now scattered across europe.

and i still fully intend on making them show me paris properly someday (aka tara)

especially montmartre, little cafés, bookstores, and every tiny street that feels like it belongs inside a film.

and everyone from lucy’s class became part of this chapter of my life too.

all the conversations before lessons started.

the laughter during class.

the awkward moments, the jokes, the accents from all over the world somehow existing in the same room.

it’s strange how people who were strangers only weeks before can suddenly become part of your memories forever.

even… that one of the us became part of this memory.

in imperfect ways.

complicated ways.

temporary ways.

but some people shape entire periods of your life even if they don’t stay forever.

and our house.

god, our house.

the late-night conversations.

the footsteps upstairs.

everyone cooking different foods.

everyone existing together while carrying entirely different lives and histories.

sometimes i would look around and already feel nostalgic while i was still living there.

and then london.

i think london permanently altered my understanding of life itself.

not because it was perfect.

but because it showed me possibility.

freedom.

movement.

quality of life.

safety.

ambition.

the feeling of existing somewhere without constantly surviving.

for the first time in my life, adulthood did not feel suffocating to me.

and ever since coming back to brazil, there has been this constant feeling inside me:

that part of me stayed there.

i don’t know what my final destination in life will be.

i don’t know who i will become in ten years.

i don’t know what career i will build or what path will take me there.

but i know one thing with terrifying certainty.

one day, i’ll come back.

because england was never just a country i loved.

somewhere along the way, it became home.

and to everyone who became part of this story,

part of that house,

part of lucy’s class,

part of those streets,

those train rides,

those nights,

those memories

i love you all, my friends.

forever.