Back when i was a kid, i used to crave to be left alone, on my own. I used to dream of a life away from home, from family and friends and relatives, a life where no one would interfere in what i do, no one to tell me now and then about what's right and what's not, no one that i would have to depend on for anything. I wanted to be free.. to be independant.. live by myself. I wanted to make the choices of my life, to decide my good myself, to plan my life myself... actually to live for myself.. only myself. I used to be so preoccupied with these dreams, and so i loved it, that i hated to come back to reality, wherein i still lived with my parents and they decided what's good for me, what's right for me and how i'm supposed to live.
And so in my final years of schooling, i decided i won't pursue further studies in my hometown. My desperation to leave home was so at par that i even forgot to apply to colleges outside my hometown.. and guess what, i had no choice but to land up in one of the colleges there itself. So here i was, "stuck at home", for another whole 4 years. Call it my bad luck or my stupidity, i was stuck..(atleast that's how i felt). As time went by, i actually started believing that my dream wont ever come true, that i'll never get a chance to be by myself anywhere away from home. My dream started to fade away...
And then came a twisty climax in my last days of college. I got hired to a company that would take me far away from home, coz it had no branches there. WOW!!.. my conscience actually said that for sure. So it was finally happening? I was getting a valid chance and reason to leave my home and live on my own.. Unbelievable as it may seem, things suddenly worked perfectly as i always anticipated, and i was going away... away chasing my long lost dream!
Lets step into my present now.. the brutal phase of my life :
It hasn't been very long since i left home, merely 10 months, and i have already learnt the lessons of my life. I've come to the realization of probably the biggest mistake i ever made. I've been living in Chennai for the past 10 months, switched home once here too, lived with a variety of different people, got to know a hell lot of varities of people and lets say have practically settled here with my work. But..... yes, there is a "BUT" in this story : I feel terrible (to say the least).
If i go back to my childhood again and recall, there had been times when i was left all alone because of a fight or difference of opinions and i used to feel bad about that..now if i compare those times to my present situation, "feeling bad about it" would be a total understatement!! There's no need to remember, i know deep inside my heart, i've never been this lonely in life.. alone..
I chased my dream and came this far.. away from my home, living in someone else's on rent.. away from my stuff, except for all what i brought with me.. away from my parents and sisters, living with roomies i practically and honestly dont know till date...away from the security my family gave to me, the people i live with can't be trusted beyond a certain extent...away from relatives and friends that used to drop by now and then, there's not even the slightest possibility of seeing someone here that resembles someone i know... away from places i used to hang out at, the stupid beaches and malls are not even close to meet those expectations... away from the life i had back at home, cos this i live now ain't really life and if it is, then i ain't me anymore!
Life sucks sometimes!! Badly! Not because of work, my work's great, couldn't have expected a better professional start anywhere else.. its my personal life that sucks. Back at home, i had no worries of who's gonna take care of my stuff, my food, my clothes, anything else i need, the bills, the monthly budgets.. nothing at all.. it was all understandably taken care of by my parents. But here, the whole thing has come down onto guess whom? ME, ofcourse. What groceries i need, where i'm gonna eat, what i'm gonna eat, when will i wash my clothes, how much is the electricity bill, where it is to be paid, how do we pay the rent, how much is the security deposit, what happens of the rent contract, how to take care of travel expenses, how to plan savings etc etc etc... I have to think of all this and more. God, the very recall of these things made me sick!!
Every morning i wake up, the first thought i have is Oh shit! What will i make for lunch today.. there's nothing available, and bloody hell, what am i gonna wear.. nothing's ironed, and then holy crap, its already 9 and i have to be in office by 10!!! Can u beat that?
Well that sounded like a pretty unplanned life.. didn't it? I thought so too. So i started planning.. and guess what happened???
Every night i go home, if early before 9, i generally go for grocery shopping, picking food that'll be easier and quicker to make.. like obviously bread, butter, maggi etc etc.. and if late after 10(which i normally am), then i cook whatever is available, make arrangements for next day's lunch, iron my clothes beforehand, talk to mom and dad, discuss budgets with roomies, and then find the courage to sleep (which you can imagine when). That's planned enough, isn't it? Now try doing that everyday, 5 days a week, 20 days a month.. alongwith 10 hrs of work!! That's where the whole "life sucks" comes from!
And this is only the beginning, the upper layer of my troubles, there's more pain and sadness inside. I've been craving to go home since like almost 2 months now, craving to see my family, my friends, sleep on my bed, eat homemade food.. but i can't. And there are reasons for it : I have work pressure, i need a minimum of 2 weeks off, which is a total impossibility right now..the air fares are sky high like the aeroplane itself and i dont have that much money,..if i go by train, i need more vacation which is "Dont even think about", and i have no other way out!
So i'm stuck where i was, where i came on my own wish, chasing my dream.. far and away from everyone and evrything that i loved and could call my own, to where there's nothing and no one to love and feel belonged to. I've cried a million nights for lacking the sense of belonging to atleast something here.
Life in Chennai is great if with all this you can still call it LIFE!
1 comment:
Too much of a change, too fast does create problems. What you are experiencing now, many already go through that in college hostels and still survive, so hang on :) independence is gud, teaches u a lot...
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