So, you finally bought the plane tickets unwillingly ready to leave without saying goodbye to your friends, colleagues, or even the love of your life? Welcome to this feeling, my winged fellows, to this strangeness of letting go of that warm fuzzy feeling of home to leave for an undesired future.
Are you feeling like fish out of water? Gee! I am glad you asked. After living in a country, I did not belong to which made me feel most alive, most loved, and most safe, leaving it all behind made my heart crumble. Little did I know coming back to the country I belonged to will make me feel so alien. I have always been an ambivert, adjusting to places and people with great pleasing abilities. I liked to surround myself with positive and smaller crowds. Worst of all, I did not choose this life, it chose me. And in that moment, I knew going back was not an option. I had to look forward.
In India, every square kilometer is spread across different languages, culture, food, and ethnicity. It is the worst feeling of being alone even amongst a room full of people. My brain is hardwired in believing that I do not belong. Suddenly I think the person I was does not match to what I have become – the conversations are no longer mine, nor the priorities, or the plans I had made. There was no manual to help me understand the huge avalanche and emotional losses I will be enduring. It is said trauma, unhealthy relationships, and dysfunctionality can lead to feeling out of place which will hopelessly make you look for validation from external forces.
I find myself often daydreaming of those care-free days, sometimes searching my home on Google maps zooming and changing angles to not forget the roads I once knew at the back of my head. You were beautiful, and the time I got to spend with you made me live a life I could not have dreamed of. It is not easy to find the courage to take and off and sustain the new air, have the courage or tears to stay. Belonging is multifaceted and it is of utmost importance to accept what you are feeling. As I look back, things have changed around me, helping me understand sides of me I never knew existed. It feels like living off a page of the same book but with different ink and writing the chapters all over again.
Oishmortal©
oishmortal
Oishmortal 
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