Moving out and moving on

A tale of two cities

Keys handed over. 

Check out done.

Goodbye. 

A silent prayer, a thank you whispered, accompanied by a deep sigh.

A bare mattress, empty drawers, postcards taken down, memories squeezed into a yellow coloured box. A life lived. A life left. Is everything in order? Is the sink clean? The wall damaged? Did I manage to make this house a home? Or am I leaving it as the four walls that closed in on me, freezing in the London winter, wondering when it’ll get better? 

As I looked around, three messy half-opened suitcases staring at me, I unclenched my jaw and thought, ‘this was my first house’. A space that was truly mine, stuffed to the brim with hopes and dreams yet somehow eerily empty at the same time. A space which belonged to me. I could eat at odd hours and smoke all the cigarettes I wanted. But I also had to pay the electricity bill and often cried about the energy crisis. Through this home, and this city, a young girl grew older. Vitality turned into scepticism and a 19 year old lived multiple lives in a bleak, grey city. She became malleable and adaptable. En route to adulthood a bright eyed teen struggled to make it on her own but knew she had to.

Even with hoards of independence and self pats on the back, the same old, funny feeling crept in. Every time I walked out of Heathrow airport, after a 9 hour long journey, a part of my heart ached. I remembered the crying faces I left behind, I would look around at families reuniting, wondering why I couldn't be with mine. The ‘right’ thing never feels right at the time, but does it ever? Does the pain of missing out ever leave? The sorrow in saying goodbye ever stop stinging? In my head, I was always very independent. I had to be, I was the first born. Only after actually being faced with my solitude, did I begin to think, was this trait ever a choice?

My solitude was always drenched in the sweaty condensation of knowing that this has always been my life. I was a sixth grader who had me and only me for company. This never ended. Loneliness doesn’t have an expiry date, it just becomes more comfortable. My adult life will forever be submerged in the melancholic nostalgia of being a friendless teenager. Unrelenting, incessant and endless, that child in pain is always a part of me, aching and crying, but pushing through nonetheless. Leaving the place that never understood you feels like a good idea. But when has that ever worked? The emptiness persists. Everything is in the hollow pursuit of being understood, being liked and most of all, being wanted. Living becomes vacant no matter where you go because “no matter where you go, there you are”. You can go anywhere you want, but how do you escape yourself? When do you find that mythical peace?

Upon reading Sally Rooney's Normal People, I found a passage that I instantly underlined darkly with my pencil, scribbling next to it ‘wherever you go, there you are’. This was my version of Confucius’ words: “no matter where you go, there you are.” Sally Rooney writes, “In just a few weeks’ time Marianne will live with different people, and life will be different. But she herself will not be different. She'll be the same person, trapped inside her own body. There’s nowhere she can go that would free her from this. A different place, different people, what does that matter?”¹ It felt as if Rooney had peered into my very being and written this from the deepest trenches of my soul. The combination of Confucius’ words and Rooney’s encapsulation of feeling like a ghost within yourself is the best way to describe this feeling. The feeling that something’s not right; I'm not in the right body, I'm lost in a world that isn’t mine. In my confusion, much like Marianne (one of the protagonists in the novel), I too chose the wrong men, isolated myself and most of all, felt a deep sense of regret; all for being alive. The existence of a new place, a new city and unfamiliar people does nothing when at the end of the day, you only come home to yourself. If I am my only friend, I am also my worst enemy, my greatest foe but my deepest love.

Only being home makes you realise that you miss home. The familiar sounds of a pressure cooker waking you up, the razai you pull over yourself is still the same shade of blue as it was when you bought it, your ears are used to the snores and the honks that come with living on the main road. Your cousins are a ten minute rickshaw ride away from you, your grandparents five flights of stairs under you and your cat sits comfortably on the wooden rocking chair, her face constantly in your eye-line. And a month later, this is lost, once again. You’re back in the cold dreariness of a foreign country that you struggle to get familiar with. The comfort is gone and the silence is back. All you can hear is your own breath. Every creak magnified, food loses its taste and the price of butter feels exorbitant. Why suffer? Because the price of the tuition feels so big that you would rather turn into Sisyphus everyday, the task of telling your family is so mammoth that you’d rather cocoon under the comfort of your duvet and pretend like tomorrow will be better. There’s only so much time. 

In another life maybe I'd be stronger. I’d be willing to explore each unknown crevice of the world, undertaking multiple lonesome journeys, comfortable with and within myself. The idea of home is so intangible in my mind that I struggle to express what it may mean. For now, it’s an amalgamation of colour, spices and strange smells. Sometimes it’s the presence of a looming voice telling you to put your clothes away, other times, it is just the existence of a bed and a wifi connection. What is home meant to mean and how do you know if you’re there? Maybe it is suffocating humidity while you are breathing passive nitrogen sitting in an auto rickshaw or, perhaps, it is very simply knowing that you’re having dosas for breakfast.  

Nowhere is the right place, no country is home and no imaginary borders validate my existence. 

As I left my house, sat in an Uber, I stared out the window. Driving through Chelsea, the sun was poking out through the trees. With Mazzy Star blasting through my earplugs, a gentle driver chatting on the phone and the sun’s rays chasing me on a balmy London day; I thought, am I making the wrong decision? Leaving means forsaking this independence I've struggled my whole life to obtain. Going back home means I’m a child. A failure. I couldn’t stick it out. Once again, I’m knocking on my parent’s bedroom door, tears in my eyes and blanket in hand. I am six again. Is that what I want? A childhood that went by too fast. Or is this the universal ‘being in your 20’s feeling’? Mourning a childhood that died too soon. My Uber came to a halt. As he began unloading my bags at Terminal 2, I had to apologise, “I’m so sorry. The bags are so heavy.” He lit up and laughed. I explained, “I’m going back home”. He looked at me extremely pleased, “Your parents must be happy to have you back?” With a chuckle, I said, “I would hope so.” I pushed my trolley, thinking and thanking the little kindness of gentle strangers. As I sat in the airport, I thought of something my aunt once said to me: “I think you’re one of those people that will always feel a little unsettled, no matter where you are.” 

1. Sally Rooney, Normal People (London:Faber and Faber) p.64