At 17, I started to work and wanted to leave my parents' house. I love my parents, obviously, but I wanted to have my apartment, my freedom, my friends over more often, my corner. I was earning R$300 (around 50€) which made it impossible, also obvious.

But my dreams were way bigger. To move to another house, another city but what I really always wanted, I don't know why, was to move to another country.

At 20, I left my parents' house. It was no cakewalk, but I there I went.

At 21, I left the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro to my sweet and also beautiful city of São Paulo. In the beginning, it was hard, pretty hard, but there I went.

At 27, I got what I'd been waiting for my whole life: I left the country.

It was beautiful. And it was thanks to Luciana and the story you can read on the next photo.

If it was easy, I would change every three months.
It’s OK to change home. It’s about OK to change city.
It’s a little bit more demanding to change country.

But, at the same time, I believe in the theory of ignorant intelligence. You know you’re in for a headache, but you close your eyes and go.

I knew I’d come here to live on a shoestring until my first wage poured in and I’d have to get myself an apartment within a month. I didn’t know I’d have to deal with one thousand documents and that it would be strenuous.

I didn’t know I’d have to stay away from Paula for months and that it would hurt. But neither did I know I’d meet Lincoln.

Right in the first day, I received the longest hug ever - my mother has never, even in her saddest days, provided me with such a long one - and an invitation to grab a drink and have a chat about apartments. Lincoln was going to explain to me how the hunt worked and tip me off, etc.

We talked about everything. We didn’t even touch our main issue. We ended up drunk.

It was good because I understood where I’d ended up and where my theory could take me. We began a friendship that would teach me a lot. And, eventually, it would also teach me what love is.

I was born in an joyous and humble family with little money.

However, what we sometimes lacked in the bank, we had on the table. If needed, my grandmother would cook bean stew, fish, and chicken, on a classic sunday lunch.

I had never realised this, until it all came together in the middle of one working-day afternoon, when Lincoln called me out for an easygoing snack. I had already rented my apartment and it was still a while until I’d get my first payment. I was half-happy and fully out of money.

I hesitated, telling him I couldn’t because I didn’t have money. Lincoln insisted he’d pay and taught me:
- Wouldn’t you do the same for me? Come on, then.

Two cheese&ham toasts, jotted down on a piece of paper. That’s how it all made sense. That simple gesture, as well as everything my family taught me, was love. Things we do hoping for nothing in exchange.

He doesn’t remember that story because, much like the day we talked about “apartments”, he acted on this giant heart he carries inside him.

All I wanted was to have had kept that handwritten bill. It proves me that love is an inheritance. The best of all. And it can always start on a bountiful table. Or in a simple toast.

We’ll be spending our third Christmas together.
It’s been a while since I’ve been trying to pay back that toast. But I’ve got it: something that is done for love cannot be paid.

When I was invited to collaborate with @NavigatorPaper the goal was to tell a story a month. I wrote the first one and felt like I could write many more. I asked them to double the dosage and they gently accepted it.

It's been good as hell but now comes the time Camões would call "writing block" - and I pray the client won't read this.

My dismay might come from changing houses after two years living in the same one. Which is weird because since I left my parents' house ten years ago I have never spent even a year in any house whatsoever.

I left my parents' house at Méier to go to Copacabana, then I must have been through some ten houses in São Paulo, then I left my stuff in Rio to travel to Dublin, came back to live in Rio and finally went to Lisbon.
But now that we've completed two years here in the ground floor of the nr. 33, we've also finished our last month.

The house is for sale and we have to move. Until today I had always said that changing houses was piece of cake. It isn't.

That's been getting on my nerves because I was never good at goodbyes. This is my new attempt, which continues on the next photo.

Two years have flown by, since that Friday Jaime helped us move in. We spent the Sunday after playing cards with Anna, Lincoln and Henrique, in the backyard table, freezing.

It went by too fast since that open house with more than thirty people, where Emanuel and Mafalda gave us some tips we still haven't used.

From then on, our house became a meeting point. A place where a lot of friends came together and hugged, kissed and spread love. A lot of dinner parties, barbecues, feijoadas, meetings, Christmas. Broken glasses, all our dirty tableware to be washed the morning after - not a glass would be spared - and wonderful Sundays of pure procrastination, just Paula and I lying on the couch.

The joy of being near Douglas and Natasha, Zé and Dani, and Matheus.

Our house was always full of people. There was even a dog, whose owner we didn't know, that came in to watch a football game. In the same World Cup but in a different match, Colmar practiced his book-throwing skills during the euphoria of a goal from Brazil. Then we had another barbecue to celebrate that.

Many people have lived here. Many people have slept here. But seeing Gui, Fabio and Alex sleeping together in the same bed in the night of the New Year's Eve was truly unforgettable.

I'm not good with goodbyes, Carlos, but we were very happy here. Very happy.

It's sad that the house is for sale but it's even sadder that a house is assessed only in terms of square feet, amount of rooms and localisation. Because a house is made of stories.

I don't know how many good stories a house can carry. I truly don't. But I know that many stories I lived here started in a piece of paper. Two years ago.

Our work is often our second home. At least for me, my work has always been more than that. Fortunately, it was also the place where I always made a family. Of friends. Brothers. Victors.

I worked together with Victor in Sao Paulo.
We always helped each other at work. And then when the work allowed, we went to some bars and laughed together. We used to meet on Saturday morning at the Villa Lobos Park to play ball. After that, we had some açaí and took a nap in the grass to sunbathe and talk a bit more. But we got closer when he moved abroad.

He was realizing his dream and mine too, at the same time. This helped me to quit my job, to buy a ticket, and understand a lot of things that are on the next photo.

Victor made me realize great things.
It was with him that I saw that friends are a big part of the family I have. And there should be a name for this category of friendship.

I was with him and with a glass of beer in my hand when I cried in a sad time of my life. But I also laughed so hard in the best time of it: our first big trip together. In the middle of it, luckily, my current boss contacted me. And after the trip, life led me to find my lovely wife.

In short, he helped me to find myself.
And all he did was to distance himself from me (geographically) and go and live abroad.

In the end, I realized that the ticket plane meant courage. And that courage also helps to cross an ocean and our own internal barriers, just to give a great friend a hug.

A thing that I would repeat a million times.