Changes

It has been 3 months since my last post here. I have to admit - the first few weeks, I felt like I was behind schedule, and then it was just too overwhelming to start over. Like when you forget to return someone's message and then so much time passes that it's just better to leave it. Well, believe it or not, I did have a reason, though I cannot say it was a good one necessarily.

So I moved from India to Bangkok recently. Very recently.

It was something in the works for the past few months, and then it happened all of a sudden. The post today is pretty much the last few weeks before my move encapsulated.

I had been purposely or maybe subconsciously avoiding thinking about the move. There wasn't a defining moment when I said, "Okay I'm doing it." It crept up as an idea at first, a possibility next, and then over a period of 2 days where I was sick and delirious, sometime in my unconscious state, it came to happen.

In the last few weeks before the move, I tried not to notice that the evening walks in my society I had been going on for the last 3 years were numbered. The bed I sleep on was soon going to feel very different. The black and white mug I hate yet continue to make my black coffee in would not be the same.

I looked at my mother and wonder what she felt. I asked her so, and she returned me the question. Neither of us knew the answer. Not until it happened, not until some time passed. I am guessing for her her, probably absence at first. I imagine new routines, new life, a lot of firsts after a long time. First time going to an event without me, to a restaurant, to my sister's place.

For me, well.

I ain't lying when I say I could not imagine. What I knew for a fact was a mandatory period of extreme discomfort. In the smell of the air I would breathe. The food I would eat, even if I am the one making it. The sound of my mornings. The unfamiliar kids replacing the ones I see everyday playing in my society now. Familiar faces in all their texture replaced by 2 dimensional ones in video calls. The missing festive air of October that feels like hope.

What I imagined and expected was a Pandora's box. I could live an amazing life with new experiences or it could all go to hell. Realistically, I believe it would be something in between. All I hoped for was that I stay true to my purpose of this transition. That I was lucky enough to meet good people and stable enough to overcome the not so good circumstances that will inevitably come my way. I hope I have learned the lessons I needed to learn, as much as I could.

I sit in a cafe right now near my new home and write this down. I feel a little lost, a little alone, though I think I am coping well generally. In the past, I have been almost naively excited and positive. Not just in situations like this, but in life in general. And when the going gets tough as it does, that pendulum can swing to the other extreme into cynicism. It is a common saying that inside every cynical person is a disappointed idealist. I want to keep the idealist alive but want to accept that life will bring disappointment, which I can handle and begin anew nevertheless. I trust myself a little more to face whatever comes my way, whether it is recognising and welcoming the good things for what they are, or the unhealthy situations that I need to step away from.

No amount of contemplation prepares for you for goodbyes though, does it? There were no tears or big, dramatic gestures. Just quiet and neat bye byes. As someone who tends to process things AFTER they happen, it was ideal in a sense. I did cross off dates on a calendar during the last 3 weeks, like a prisoner in a movie, to remind myself that it was real, that it was happening. I think it was just a small physical representation to my fleeting mind that would not process that change was indeed happening. When I started packing, I realised how small the space I occupy really is. How it can fit into 2 or 3 bags. But the 30 years worth of memories and experience, I carry it in my heart. And it was and is still so heavy sometimes I have trouble breathing. So I breathe in and tell myself that as heavy as it feels, it holds the capacity for so much I am yet to experience. And you know what, I can't wait. There is no getting around discomfort. It would never be the right time for change.

I am as ready as I can be.