If someone had told me five years ago that I would be thinking about voting YES on the Catalan referendum,  I would have laughed in their faces.

My maternal grandparents came from another region of Spain, and I have always feel like I was Catalan and Spanish. I still have family there.

During all my summer holidays when I was a kid we visited several Spanish regions, and I loved Spain,

If someone had told me two years ago that I would be  voting YES on the Catalan referendum, I would laughed in their faces.

But I wanted to vote.

My grandfather fought in the Spanish Civil War against the Dictator Franco, and lost an eye and the right of talking in Catalan. He fought for freedoom, and our right to vote.

And now they are saying that we can't vote.

If someone told me one year ago that I would be  voting YES on the Catalan referendum, I would had said maybe.

But I really, really wanted to vote.

Isn't that what Democracy means?

That people have the power to decide?

The Spanish president is now telling the Catalan government not to seek legitimacy in the people.  OK. Then Spain is not a democracy. And I want to belong to a democracy.

Spain have come to say that the Catalan government has abducted us. Someone needs to remind them that the movement for independence began in the streets, and that after massive demonstrations it was the politicians who decided to pull forward the referendum.

NOW I'M VOTING YES

After the last weeks, of not wanting Spain to sit down to negotiate, to only know how to say no, of threats to journalists and attacks on freedom of speech, all the lies about the terrorist attack, all the repression and the fear, to feel sick whenever I heard the voice of the president of Spain in the TV, I've had enough. I do not want to be Spanish, I do not feel Spanish anymore.

Posso dizer que desde o primeiro dia em que me vi assim, de alma desnuda, permissiva ao contato de todo itinerante que a rua me trouxesse naquele instante, não tenho mais os mesmos pesos, as mesmas medidas da vida.

Abandonei bagagens e mais bagagens para dar lugar a tantos novos sentidos que a mim vieram de tão doces contadores, filhos das margens, dos vãos... Podendo eu ainda servir de acalento, talvez ao menos um instante de sua história, por apenas um simples ouvir... As vezes um simples olhar mesmo.

Não nego que existam contrastes que ali habitam também. Contrastes vitais; para cada 'marginal' - artista de rua ou hospedeiros desta - mil oportunidades de empatia que se esvai... Evapora com a efervescência do egocentrismo. Em contrapartida, para cada 'mão fina' apressado, mil lições de humildade, cidadania, resiliência, amor e perdão, vindas do fruto de maior desprezo do CIStema.