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The Leaving vs The Left Behind

 

I still remember, I was standing near the entrance looking out at the garden. I was at my best friend’s home and she had gone to get her ever famous chips chilly for me. I was to leave for Bangalore again, in a couple of days. While I waited, I looked out at the garden and this thought came into my head. “Who is it harder for? The one leaving or the ones left behind?” Is it going to be harder for me in a new place readjusting and exploring, or my best friend here, who will me miss me? Is it harder for a person to settle in a completely new place with a completely new lifestyle and have to find new people or for a person to see the same old places, the same old alleys and reminiscent the good times they had with their friend who are not around at the moment?

It was a random thought that filled my mind a couple of minutes and then I got over it. Some time after resettling here in Bangalore, my best friend sent me a reel. The reel was about 2 close friends who used to lived minutes away from each other, but now live thousands of miles away, how they could they could have visited the other whenever they wanted, how the same old places just do not feel the same anymore. It had me in tears. And just like that, I was standing again near the entrance of her home, looking out at the garden, the same thought engulfing me. But this time, this time I knew the answer.

Yes, it is hard for the person who is leaving, to leave everything behind, to start afresh, to find a new place to live, to pay bills, to somehow make it by, to miss home every holiday, to save money, to feel lonely; but you have the endless exploring to do of new places, of new foods, of new people, of new feelings. You have a goal, you have motive; you have a purpose. It is harder for people left behind: for parents who wait for your phone every day, for grandparents who wait till they can see you again, for siblings who cannot wait to tease you you and fight with you, for friends who go to the same coffee shop just to realize how long it has been since you both met, for colleagues who pass the same alley where you laughed randomly. It is undoubtedly hard for the person who leaves, but it is harder for the person who is left behind.

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