My Last Day in India

February 3, 2016

It had been my second winter break since I moved to New York. As excited as I was to go back the first time, I was that much more apprehensive the second time around. A lot had changed. I, myself, was in a transition, just about stumbling upon my own sense of self. But more importantly, that feeling of going home, that no longer existed. In fact that had changed to a feeling of going away from home.  I’d like to think that New York made its toughest case for me to change my mind, but that right there was the crux of it all.

In hindsight, it was the fear of familiar calling that I was afraid of – not that I was a changed person in a changed time, but the thought that maybe I wasn’t changed enough.

Along the course of that one month that I spent there, I came vis-à-vis with a lot of those familiar situations, the ones that I’d once mistaken to be my way of life.

“There is just no drive in this place. So easy to slip back into old ways, those that await with open arms, enticing you with deceptive feelings. I have to be better this time.” – 12/22/2015

For the most part I did well. And then there were times when I questioned it all. And then it dawned on me – no matter how badly I wanted to stay attached to this place, this scene, truth was that I had moved on.

“Be attached. But be detached from the effect of that attachment.” – as told to me by a very wise friend

The decision to move away from home, was mine. I felt the need to get out of my comfort zone, a place which like quicksand had been fast dragging me further and further away from my identity. The fault – my weak mind, my lack of self awareness.

Today, those are the two things precisely that I pride myself with, ever growing.

It wasn’t until the last day that I could completely accept this. Relief – that’s what I felt, and I knew, it was time to go home.

I’d like to end this post with the thought that made me write this today in the first place – a conversation with an Indian women at the Frankfurt airport, as we both waited there to fly back home.

I’m not sure how, but somehow our small talk evolved into something so precisely what I needed to hear, that has stayed with me, always will.

She said to me, “You’re still young, impressionable. Surround yourself in an environment which augments your passions, your drive. I used to think emotionally about my roots too, but now I know, your roots are firmly planted within you, you carry those values with you lifelong. I brought up my children in a completely foreign environment, one that has supported their ambitions, and never taken away from their culture. The earlier on that you accept where you truly assimilate, the better it will be for you to embrace your life. The trick is to know yourself, and trust yourself.

This was the very thought that made me think of this conversation. I’ve come a long way since then, a mind stronger and more self aware. I know I have a long long way ahead, but wherever it may be that life may take me, I know I am ready, I know I have a purpose, and it’s not the place will matter, but the people that I surround myself with. Those will be the experiences that construe my story, along with many others.