The past few months have by far been the busiest and most stressful of my life. The good news is I am now a home owner and have settled in to living in my place. The bad news though is that after having repressed my emotions for so long, now that I am able to finally breathe they seem to have come to the surface through the opening of a metaphorical floodgate.
Prior to the weekend someone asked me how I was dealing with all the sudden changes occurring in my life. They asked me what it meant that the home I grew up in had just sold, that we were moving out and that my parents were relocating back to Colombo. At the time I answered emotionlessly. I opened my mouth and the words that came out were “I don’t feel anything right now”. I was however able to articulate that I thought that I had unintentionally buried my feelings and covered these up with the urgency of finding a place of my own. Thus concealing my sadness with the busyness of taking on a mortgage and for the lack of a better word, making an attempt at ‘adulting’.
All of this however, came to a head when I sat down yesterday, all moved in and completely on my own. I found myself drowning in a sensation of unease and loneliness that was debilitating. Months of repressing my emotions had led me to this very point and I was utterly unprepared to deal with this gushing wave.
I know so many of us find ourselves in this place every so often and don’t know what to do or how to get ourselves out of that feeling of utter despair. No matter what I attempted to do I just couldn’t rid myself of that black cloud hanging over me. My concentration level was pathetically dismal as my mind just wouldn’t and couldn’t commit to thinking of anything but what was bringing me down.
I kept trying to remind myself that this feeling was due to a combination of things including being in an unfamiliar place and being alone again after months of being around others 24/7. In my moments of clarity I remembered that my home, this space, would eventually be a sanctuary and that I value being by myself and retreating from the world at times in order to recharge. But at that particular moment I couldn’t see through the overwhelming emotion dragging me down.
If I have learnt anything over the years however, it’s that the only way to confront fear is to face it, accept your circumstance and try to move forward. So I sat there, uncomfortably, overwhelmed by sorrow but I didn’t try and busy myself as a distraction. I acknowledged the feeling of discomfort, of unfamiliarity, of melancholy and sat with it. I properly recognised for the first time that I would have leave to Colombo soon with my parents and return alone without them. I understood that my identity would be splintered by the concept of home being spread across 2 locations. I accepted that my heart would always long for the other destination and it would consistently remain heavy.
In saying all of this, I can now comprehend that simply acknowledging these things won’t make them go away. I will still long for my family when I’m in Melbourne and yearn for my home when I’m in Colombo. But life is all is about facing adversity and continuing on. It’s about making adjustments to constant change. Our existence is truly about building resilience and understanding that you can’t have everything but that’s OK. It’s about appreciating your blessings and the sacrifices that your loved ones have made for you. It’s about feeling things and not blocking them out; even if this means being consumed by utter sadness at times.
The truth is, the intensity of these feelings will pass but the love of those I treasure the most will remain with me always. Change is necessary to move into the next chapter of my life. While that will make me uneasy for some time, it will allow me with to be presented with new opportunities for the betterment of my future. Living is complicated and we are consistently confronted with a roller coaster of emotions. But our resilience builds each time we are challenged and equips us with the tools we need to face the next series of trials and tribulations that are the one and only constant of life.
So while I may be a little sad and defeated right now, I am forever guided by the love of my family and the brightness of what is to come in my future.
Sx
I blog for Change. 