Back to Blog after a long time!

Posted on November 13, 2022 by Ruchi

It’s been months away from blogging. I have been thinking of coming back to this sacred place since months now, but then the procrastinator in me keeps putting it off to an unknown date. The past few months were a frenzy of a different sort. It had started as a quenching of a thirst, of knowledge and of a will to prove myself and this has taken me to lands unknown! Today,I am sitting in a house in a far away land. A land away from my home land ( India) , a land away from the place (Dubai ) which had become familiar and sort of homely over the years. I wonder whether I should just trust this journey and surrender myself to what path the universe has set me for! Or I should resist and run back to the familiar world, to the coziness of the home we had built and to those familiar faces and surroundings.

I am gazing at the blank screen, wondering what more should I write. It’s difficult to start anew in a new place especially when you are already in your middle age, set in your ways. Not being a primary breadwinner, I did have a privileged life. I never had to worry about renting a place, setting up my bills, shopping for a new house, buying a car all alone. I was thinking whether I did worry about these when I 1st set up my house in Delhi or when we moved to Dubai. The bigger expenses were always discussed. Somehow, the boundaries or responsibilities were always drawn.

When I first came to UK to write my royal college exam, I considered it more of an adventure. Booking my own tickets, getting visa done alone, figuring how to go from London to Exeter, and managing small details. I was more worried about these details rather than the exam. And even if the outcome of exam would have been otherwise, I would have still felt accomplished for having ticked a solo international travel.

Yet, it does not seem like adventure anymore. I worry about being so far away in a new city. I miss being away from my partner and best friend. I miss his voice when I come home. I miss finding him in my bed when I turn over in sleep. Most of all I miss him when reasoning with the teen boy becomes difficult. I miss having that shoulder to lean on. I try to seek familiarity in supermarkets, searching for Indian food, things and people. I get delighted if I see Indian faces or hear Hindi being spoken somewhere. It’s not that I’m a racist, but that’s how the mind works. You try to seek solace in the known. Though, I’m overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. A bus driver dropped me to the correct stop when I had walked all the way wrong. My colleague at work left me keys of her apartment so that I did not have to worry about the laundry. Director Admissions at my son’s school counselled us like our own grandmother would have. And incidents like these make me feel may be I will survive.

I walk alone on the paths and miss my friends. I miss that feeling of having them just a phone call away. Yet, the beauty around me keeps me in awe of the nature I have missed. The fresh air around me reminds of how artificial my life had been. Already, I am more physically active. I am completing my 10,000 steps each day. I am eating better and sleeping better too.

Change is the only constant in the world, and I should stop resisting this change. I look around at the colours of autumn. May be like the trees, I am too shedding my leaves. When spring comes, it will be a new me, a better me.