Moving cities, changing rooms, new work routines; everything makes me feel so heavy at first. The transition always leaves me with this painful feeling of temporariness. It is as if I am not here, I am going to be leaving soon. Always moving, never at one place. Even when I know I am going to stay at a place for a year at least, my mind would not let me feel the temporary permanence for some time. Quite an ironic statement, but I do not know how to explain it in any other way.
The most difficult part about moving places is how you need to start romanticizing your life all over again. The new routine, the new bedroom, the new pathways; I have to prepare my mind for calling these the new home. The lack of familiarity fills me with dread. “Bit by bit, I will settle,” I tell myself, and I keep on telling myself even after two months have passed.
Living solo involves a lot of alertness and quite some loneliness. No mother, no father, no grandparents to attend to the doorbell. No surprise fruits or cake in the fridge. No cooked meals. No folded laundries. And no coming back to a home with buzzing conversations. It is a tiresome journey of falling back to the arms of solitude that feel foreign now. Music does not comfort me to that extent anymore because my senses are always too alert to the surroundings to have the calmness to relish music. I want to be happy, but I guess right now the newness is overwhelming everything else.
It was so new for me, buying groceries for the first time. Now I know the prices of most of the vegetables and that fruits are expensive. I thought earning money was going to be fun. It is, just on the first day though. Then come the rent, the EMIs, and the groceries. I have to carve out savings from my budget, and frugality is something I am preparing myself to get used to. Either you are already a responsible person, or responsibilities eventually come to you. I think I fit in between.
I think one of the saddest realizations I had in these past months is that dreams are expensive. Expensive to have, and expensive in the monetary sense too. I was never the motivated kind when it came to making money. I was content. Content with the life I had. Maybe because I did not know what all was there in the world. Now that I do, I want to make things better for myself and my family. I now value discipline and consistency more than I ever did before. The expensive dreams are some years away, but I am determined to reach them. Bit by bit, I will be comfortable with solitude, and the said solitude will be helping me pave the way for my shiny dreams.
