Away From Home

After more than two months at home, I am now back in my small room in our college. The train took 28 hours to reach Mumbai. I still feel myself swaying like I am sitting on a train. It has been raining almost continuously since I arrived, which is a constant here in Mumbai during this season.

I had never thought I would feel so nostalgic. My parents, my friends always tell me – I should always be fine with living away from home given that I have lived away for quite long, that it is something I must have become immune to my now. I have lived away from my parents since kindergarten.

I am just a little confused that I am feeling nostalgic given that it wasn’t so when I was in high school. I used to mingle with the crowd forgetting my home soon after my parents would drop me at my hostel. I could only contact them on weekends and be happy about having talked to them.

Earlier, this passive approach to separation didn’t affect me. I never felt anything wrong with it. I had this weird notion in my head that it somehow made me stronger. But this has become hard to do as I came to college. That indifference seems superficial to me. I am no longer able to suppress that nostalgia.

When I am at home, I am still treated like a kid, which is very endearing in its very own way. Maybe, it’s because I don’t quite remember my childhood all too well. Maybe that’s why I feel more nostalgic now than I did before. I had to be tough while staying at a hostel, I couldn’t make mistakes or be naive.

I think growing up has somehow given me a strange freedom to be a little weak, a little emotional, a little vulnerable. I had to be tough while staying at a hostel, I couldn’t make mistakes or be naive. I think growing up has somehow given me a strange freedom to be a little weak, a little emotional, a little vulnerable.

I used to be a non-thinker boy when I was in high-school. Everything was very clear – black or white.  Nowadays, I think a lot – about everything – the good and the bad and everything in between. And somehow it helps me. Sometimes, it doesn’t. Still, I can’t force myself to stop.

Maybe I am just growing up to understand my own complexities. I am trying to figure it out!