It is painful. Long distance relationships are very painful. Thanks to the technology, I get to see my loved ones, I get to talk to them for hours on end. I don’t know if it makes me feel better or worse. there are days when hearing their voice is a relief. It feels like a hot shower relaxing your muscles after a long exhausting day. It gives you comfort and peace. There are other times when after the call, I feel the void in my chest growing bigger and I crave to be with them more than ever. The time-zone differences do not help one bit. They make things even more difficult.
The fact that you wont be able to hold them close to you anytime soon and the fact that you wont be able to hug them is a constant pain. The isolation from a life you lived to the fullest. A reality that seems to be fading away by every passing day. And the place you are right now feels like a half cooked reality. It lacks life because you left it back home and that does not help you color your present. You are caught between your past and present. You are caught between your home and your new city. You are constantly trying to paint the new city with the colors from your hometown. You try to see people of the past in the people of the present. Sometimes the colors don’t match. Sometimes the colors don’t blend. And most of the time nothing makes sense to you. The sunsets and sunrises are constant reminders of time passing and it is the only familiar process.
There are days when you forget the weight inside your chest. There are moments when the new city breathes its life into you and in those moments you do not resist. you do not fight it with familiarity. You embrace those moments and the new city with curiosity. One day, these moments should add up and make you feel home. One day these moments wont fight the past and mere co-exist. But until that day, you will find yourself crying when you see a mother hug their child or two lovers holding their hands. Until that day, you will feel a tinge of guilt for enjoying the new life and embracing the new city.
And the people, you will realize strangers back home and the strangers in the new city are not much different. Friends, you will keep some, you will lose some and you will make some. This would have happened even if you never moved to a new city. You will find that nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. You will find the differences and similarities to make no sense. You stop trying to figure it out. There are no “why”s or “how”s. It just is.
The Palette Mind 