Leaving is so hard!

Waking up this morning was difficult. Getting out of bed meant the day would begin, and if it began, then it would start ending 🙁 If it started ending, it would mean I would have to pack up and check out of my beautiful hotel (the one with expansive mountain views), and prepare to board a bus back to New Delhi at night. Ugh.

(I do realise delaying the wake-up isn’t going to stop the day from ending. It’s just how I felt, lol *covers face*.)

It isn’t that I dislike Delhi, but hey, we’re comparing the mountains – the grand beauty, the magnificence, the silence, and the clean air – to, well, a city. We all know what THAT’s like.

This happens. This happens every single time I leave a place. I become so attached to it, that it feels like a part of me is being ripped out when I go. Because the part that’s been ripped out of me stays there. It doesn’t want to leave. It wants to stay where it feels it belongs, and how can I stop it?

I’ve got a bit of me lying around in so many places now, I think.

I also realise I sound like freaking Voldemort – AHHHH I WILL LIVE FOREVER, NO ONE CAN EVER KILL ME BAHAHAHAHAHA.

It’s weird, in a way, because I am leaving a place to go back home, and home is everything that is warm and comforting and happy and familiar. It’s where you are your absolute self, in all your normal, amazing, weird, disgusting glory (you know it’s true); and yet it feels strange to go back.

AND I DON’T WANNA GO BAAAACK!

Would you know what I mean if I say I find a home everywhere? I’m not entirely sure how to articulate it, but there’s a feeling that starts to set in when you’re starting to get comfortable somewhere. Suddenly, a familiarity is creeping in. You can recognise roads, people, places. The initial uncertainty of being in a new place falls away and you’re absorbing everything so much that it begins to feel normal. You drop your sense of heightened caution (only the ‘heightened’ part. Always be cautious, wherever you are.) and start accepting the newness. That’s when you let the warmth of the people in, and THAT is exactly when your journey to become one of them begins. It only begins though, but DAMN if it doesn’t feel wonderful!

It can’t replace home. Of course not. You’ve lived there all your life, that’s what has shaped you into what you are. Nothing can replace the warmth of your house, the exact softness of your pillow, the cuddliness of your mattress, and most importantly, the feeling of being with your loved ones.

What I am talking about is the shadow of it. There’s a shadow of homeliness that has started coming in wherever I go. With the familiarity comes a sense of comfort, which, I suppose, is hard to let go of when I leave 🙂 An attachment to the amazing new people I meet, who welcome me so openly that it never fails to surprise me (the world is KIND, give it a chance!), which I don’t want to let go of because it’s a relationship that has JUST started blossoming, and it feels so nice!

So when I say I don’t want to go back home, it doesn’t mean I REALLY DON’T WANT TO ENTER MY HOUSE AGAIN OR SEE MY FAMILY AGAIN. It just means I don’t want to leave all of this back here. And I suppose in a way, I’m bringing it all back with me – as a photo, a conversation, a memory.

So while I leave a piece of myself behind, that gap is filled by what I’m bringing back. Such a colourful puzzle I’m becoming, and to that I’ll say – YAY!

Have you ever felt this way?