Footnotes from a farewell while archiving my old life
Unpacking. The act of opening and removing the contents of…a suitcase, a bag, a package…my heart!
Unpacking is truly a deceptive word. Normally it just means I am taking things out of my luggage, putting them in some place and just thinking “Oh well it’s just temporary, who cares!”, but tonight, well, tonight every item in this room feels like evidence. A proof that I have actually uprooted my whole life, fit it into two tiny luggages and flew all the way to the other side of the world.
The journey here just didn’t feel real before all this “unpacking”. Before this it was all just logistics and planning….
got the visa? Book a flight!
Got a flight? Rent a place!
Got the place? Buy your luggages and start the eternal struggle to pack everything up!
All set for flying? Customs? Immigration? Check-in? Transit? Delay??
It was all just checkpoints and milestones to be crossed to reach the starting line of my dreams. Little did I know how hefty the price of dreams truly are. Dreams cost goodbyes.
No one truly talks about the strange guilt of chasing your dreams even if it means leaving the people who helped you dream the dream in the first place.
I have only been to airports just a couple of times, it always felt fast-paced. Everyone is always in a rush to move from Point A to B. And for me, it wasn’t much different either. But even if everything moved fast, time inside me seemed to slow down the further I walked.
The smoother the journey went the guiltier I felt, “this must be all the prayers from everyone keeping me safe! My mother’s love must be protecting me.”
I landed here quite late at night and stayed over at a friend’s place, still not being able to process.
Here, everything felt new!
The way the sun sets is a slightly different way.
The way the moon feels upside down somehow, just like my life.
There is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with starting over in a foreign country. It’s not really dramatic or loud. It’s very subtle. You come here, go about your new life, adjust with the new rules but somehow at the back of your mind something feels off.
As I force myself to “unpack” in this ungodly hour of the night, the only silver lining that comes to mind is growth. Just like how loneliness feels subtle, it also comes packaged with this quiet pride.
The pride of figuring things out on your own.
Opening a bank account alone. Reaching your destination without getting lost all by yourself. Learning the rhythm of a new city quietly. And introducing yourself again and again and again and some more, until your name feels steady in your mouth and this foreign language feels smooth.
I didn’t think independence would sound this quiet. I’m learning that it’s not as cinematic as the movies make it out to be. Not the golden-hour freedoms or the aesthetic fits and pics. Sometimes, it is the heaviness of sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by half-unpacked luggage and munching on dry cereal while convincing yourself that this silence is growth and not loneliness. Sometimes it’s being an “independent adult” and forcing yourself to “unpack”.
But! Maybe this is what becoming looks like.
Maybe it starts like this…these unsettled drawers, mismatched cutlery and the half eaten sandwich in a room that doesn’t really know you yet. Maybe slowly it will. Maybe these late night sessions will sink into the desk. Maybe my tears will get soaked into the bed and my laughter in the walls. Maybe the frogs will stop sounding like an echo outside the window and start feeling like company.
For now though, I am here. I am alive. In the quiet. In the in-between.
Unpacking not just my clothes but also the version of me that chose to leave the arms of the love that she felt always.
