Coming away I

As I took one last long look at the room which was my tiny little home for the last three years, I try to control the flood of emotions more on the spectrum of loss, with hope. Punching and kicking my worldly belongings into two suitcases and cussing myself for owning an unnecessarily large number of possessions could be said to be the defining theme of the last couple of days. Between frenzied packing and discarding and basically trying to fit my life into suitcases, my heart kept skipping beats at the random realizations of exactly what I was leaving behind. The realization that I was leaving behind the person I love the most in this world, my mom, was like a trickling pain. It was slow, steady and piercing. Tears, however, did not flow as freely as anger did. I had learned to hold my tears back from my childhood and I am quite adept at reversing grief with anger. The kind of anger that portrays me as a bitch, to be blunt.

The ride to the airport was silent, perforated with usual complaints about the traffic and random small talk. Beside me was the person who I knew was breaking down inside as she was preparing herself to send off her daughter to a new journey. Beside her, was the person who probably had more hatred for me than the hatred a person feels for a murderer. For her, I was the antichrist, the destroyer and I did not need words to feel or know that.

As I made my way across the horrid immigration system of my country where we are more questions for leaving the country with a valid passport, ticket and reason, than an inmate going on parole, I looked back one last time, for a very long time, to the person who I owe everything to. I consoled myself yet again with hope.

Every time I felt like leaving everything and running back to the comfort of my mom’s warm embrace, where the only thing that mattered was that she is the only person in the world who loves me and accepts me for who I am, I pause myself. Remembering all those ugly twists of my fate that started me on this path of self-exodus. That made me go on a journey that meant leaving everything I love, know and own behind. Every sleepless night, that made me long to be somewhere that is my own. No matter how small, no matter how hard. Because some sacrifices are not just necessary, they are all that you can do self-preserve.

It is making use of our natural flight or fight response and not giving up. It is the choice you make to simply leave. Because even though you never tell anyone, but you know you will not survive if you do not take this heart-wrenchingly cataclysmic step. For you see, phoenixes are only reborn through their own annihilation.