It has been a year since we moved back to India. However, the feeling of being a repatriate continues. I am beginning to think that this just might be a lifelong "feeling". On the other hand, being back here is beginning to feel good too. What a confusing mess this process is! Despite all this feelings I talk about, I can't for the life of me say that I am happy to have moved back or still unhappy about having moved back!
It's not all about feelings either. Even, as I consider and compare lifestyles, vocational requirements etc, I still see how being here, makes everything a little harder, a little more difficult, somewhat crazy, sometimes impossible etc. On the other hand, I seem to be slowly growing into this personality who, if not able to do something to change the circumstances, can change shapes to accommodate myself within that circumstance, whatever it is.
Is this a positive aspect? I don't know. Am I truly making peace with it or compromising for now, which might just result in an outburst later?...I don't know that either.
But strangely, ask me, do I want to move back to the US now?...and I'll say no. Do I still miss living there? Yes I do. So, how does one make sense of this?
I am telling myself that this is just another step in the process of getting reoriented and settling down in one's home country after being away for a while. Maybe, just maybe, when I am writing here after another year has gone by, I'll be saying...yeah! this is where I want to be, in India and in no other corner of this earth!
As I write this, I am beginning to realize, it need not be that random or "happened to me" kind of event after all. Maybe I have the choice to work towards making that happen - towards putting myself in a place, or creating a state of being within me, where I am truly content to settle down here and put down my roots. Maybe in this journey of repatriation, I still haven't reached the place where I can make that choice...yet...but soon, I might just get there.
This is so interesting -- I don't have the same roots to where I live (since I moved here to Maine without ever living here before, with no relatives, etc.), and I have always felt out of place, not at home. But I too have reached a point that I think I need to find that choice within me, to be at home, wherever the place is that I have chosen to live. Interesting to hear it from another point of view!
ReplyDelete....And that I am sure will happen in Virajpet:) because that's where your roots are and you would have made that conscious choice after having lived in places and experienced different things.
ReplyDelete-Suchi.
@Julia...Yes Julia, it has to come from within and that's what makes it so difficult I think, coz many times what's within us is very complex and far more difficult to negotiate compared to our external environment!
ReplyDelete@Suchi...Oh Yes! That's my hope too...we'll see how things turn out!