Well, honestly I don’t know how to start writing this post, but get ready for a very long read.

It’s a mix of needing to get things off my chest and derail with the dystopia of managing, little by little, to find my way through this entropy.

This is the first of three posts. Three parts of a dream that’s being built with a lot of pain, suffering, loneliness, anger, madness, and a good pinch of love. But being built nonetheless.

My first contact with the Isle of Man started in 2016. I received a message from a headhunter from the island looking for developers for a company called PokerStars. At the time, e-gaming wasn’t a big thing in Brazil, people barely knew what it was. If you wanted to play or bet, you’d have to do it in dollars, on American or other countries’ websites.

That said, I got interested. At the time, recently hired by IBM, I saw the world opening up before my eyes. (This IBM story is for another time, when I’ll narrate my path there.)

There were several rounds of interviews, two tests in Python. In the second one, unfortunately, I didn’t pass. But maybe it wasn’t the right time.

That gave me time to focus on some things in life: ending cycles, starting new ones, achieving dreams, crying over unnecessary things and longing, fighting for those who were with me and fighting against what hurt me.

In the meantime, the pandemic arrived. IT jobs exploded. I’ve never felt so sought after as a developer. “The golden years”, I could say. A lot of good people showed up for work. Just as the locusts appeared, like the plagues of Egypt, which again is for another post.

I rode that wave. I traveled. I got to know places. I took care of myself. I fell in love. I adopted cats. I set up my dream home. I got COVID. I learned to love cycling. I got engaged. I got rid of debts. Not everything in the same order.

And I received a job offer to work in the Isle of Man.

The seed from 2016 finally sprouting.

When that offer came, I was going through IBM for the second time, now as a systems architect. I decided to accept it. Why not? I had my bills paid, a reasonably comfortable life. Time to venture out.

The visa process began. It was an adventure between proofs and documents, unnecessary translations, silly mistakes and a lot of anxiety. Everything was quite nice, working remotely with a known team, people who had been living there for a while. Until the company I was working for started delaying payments.

We accelerated some things. We borrowed money (because sometimes too little craziness is silly) and took off.

This was a giant timeskip of all the family drama and how attached I am to my family, especially to my father, who was already sick. Therapy, people, therapy.

We arrived in the Isle of Man.

Crazy, the experience of taking the first flight in my life. Speaking with the first foreigner. Seeing the clouds up close for the first time. Even today I like to stay by the window looking for hours on end like a child who simply does it just because.

And there we were: tired, dejected, unmotivated and unemployed.

September 19, 2023. Two days before Giovanna’s birthday. Cold. Inadequate clothes. No furniture. Borrowed mattress and some sweaters as a blanket.

That was our beginning.

In the first few days, we discovered that the company no longer existed. The chance of receiving reimbursement for salaries and relocation had, in fact, turned to dust in our hands.

But hey, here we are. On the other side of the world, with the opportunity that many people would give everything to have. Sometimes the dream charges the price before showing itself. And we pay. And we continue. So we have to get some milk and honey out of this lemon.

But that’s for part 2.