Finding my Hiraeth

    My boyfriend tells me that living with your people in your home state feels different...that there is nothing like it. His ultimate aim is to find a decent-paying job that allows him to shift back to Assam (our home state), and while that's completely okay and suits his preferences, it's not mandatory that I feel the same way. Over the years of being in a relationship and seeing couples around me, I developed the opinion that it takes compromises to make things work in a long-term relationship. And while I've seen ambitious wives willingly leave their high-paying jobs (often higher than their husbands) to raise the kids, I don't see them being exactly 'happy' about it. These women, for the sake of their families and everything that patriarchy expects of women, sacrifice their dreams, their preferences, and their ideal bodies and then go around selflessly serving the ones they love. Three years ago, I was halfway there, with these women, in a place where sacrifice came naturally to me, but not anymore.

    My university education has exposed me to a new class of women—the ones who have it all—families, kids, jobs, friends, freedom, independence, and everything else. I've also seen women with a few of these many things willingly chosen or removed from their lives—job satisfaction and luxury minus a husband, or perhaps a great job and a loving husband minus the kid....and it all works for them; they seem 'happy,' unlike the above scenario where sacrifice makes everyone happy but the self. This post is not about feminism; I have too little knowledge on the subject to write a blog post on it.

    It's a Saturday today, a weekend, and I woke up at 5:21 a.m. (about the usual time). Then, I willingly chose to stay in bed and catch another round of sleep. As is the case with morning sleep, the best nap happened from then until about 9:30 a.m. I was content. I could have left the bed then, but I chose to break the early morning cycle, with it being the weekend and me having nothing better to do and all of that. So, I decided to finish the film I began watching the previous night. By the time I was done with the movie, it was 11 a.m. So, I finally left the bed. I made myself some tea and had it with half a packet of Marie Biscuits (this combo is my all-time favourite). While doing all of this, a thought came to me: I should go out. It has been three days since I left the house, and while the inner traveller wants to step out and explore Guwahati, two very logical problems stop me: firstly, the stupid humidity and heat of the place, and secondly, I don't want to spend my money. So yeah, the overpowering voice in my head that constantly tells me to YOLO it away has suddenly succumbed to reason, and I am simply amazed. This has never happened before, at least not while I was in Hyderabad and Bangalore. I know that reason is the better friend; the proof remains in my fewer travel stories in Shillong. I just didn't want the same thing to happen while I was out there in a metropolitan city so I had made an unofficial pact with myself that for the brief period that I was away from Assam, I would make the most of everything and travel as much as I could, hang out with people from different states, gather knowledge from them, exchange cultural experiences, etc.

    

    But here we are, three years later, back in the home state where reason has a better chance of sustaining itself than YOLO wale feelings. So yeah, I am saving money and choosing not to step out much. My parents were here for two days, and I had to go out a lot with them, but now there's very little reason for me to step out. I have even switched back from Instamarting and BigBasketing everything home to going to the local shop and getting stuff. A major lifestyle change is happening here, and I'm not exactly unhappy about it. But because of all of this and the fact that I'm here for my Ph.D. and that I should be engaged with books and research rather than idling my time and money away on the streets, I have switched to a low-key life. If you follow my Instagram stories and post captions, you'll remember that lately, my life has been very unstable and that I've constantly been on the move. I have prayed for things to slow down, for some permanence and stability, and I have also feared that the stability would make my life dull and make me all gloomy, like my childhood and lockdown days.

    So, this morning, when I woke up and had the mental monologue of whether I should go out, I realized that the fear was materializing. I am stable but not happy about it. Turns out, I was happiest when I was living out of a bag in an unknown land, adjusting, trying local food, making reels and stories, travelling, seeing the world, and just living freely. That I realized is my hiraeth. The dictionary defines hiraeth as 'a deep sense of longing, a yearning for that which has passed.' It is homesickness and yearning for a home or loved place. But having found my hiraeth and looking at its definition, I feel the need to dig deeper into the subject because what I crave is far from the definition of hiraeth or that which my boyfriend craves. He craves home and all that's known and familiar, whereas I find bliss in the unknown, the anonymity, and the fear of being lost in a sea of lost.

    Hiraeth is a longing for a home or homesickness of some sort. But who decides the definition of home? Home could mean different things to different people. Home could be a feeling or a person, too. So, what’s home for me, I wonder? I finally realized that for me, home is any place where I am alone with strangers; home is a comfortable room with all my essentials and a deep desire to travel, write, click, and exist. Home to me is a room and a feeling. Google tells me that this longing that I have for a faraway place is called fernweh and is actually the opposite of hiraeth. Shocking, isn’t it?

    Now, the dictionary defines fernweh as ‘a desire to go to faraway places.’ It’s wanderlust of some sort. While I agree that my yearning is for a faraway land, an unknown place that I eventually fall in love with, it’s also my home. So, could the opposites be the same under certain circumstances? Could my hiraeth be my fernweh, and vice versa? In my case, the answer is yes.

    At the beginning of this post, I talked about how people compromise in relationships. My decision to relocate to Guwahati was something close to a compromise, a compromise not just for the long-term feasibility of my romantic commitments but also for my filial duties. However, two weeks down the road, I see myself deeply unhappy. I know it's too soon to discard a beginning, for beginnings are often rough. But a part of me has realized over the last two weeks that I may not ever be entirely happy with a place again, and I have accepted that too. When has life ever been perfect for anyone? Some parts of our lives are more special than others, and some memories are evergreen while others instantly fade, and that's what makes them precious. Change eventually catches up, no matter how fast we are at running towards the things we love. So my mind tells me two things: either stay back and try to love where you are, or run away to that which makes you truly happy. After all, it's your life—not your lover's or your family's. And then I go numb. The selfless version of me who's now made room for a version that believes in self-love is lost. I am so lost. Whoever said that adulthood is better than adolescence knows nothing. Your twenties are as complicated and confusing as your teens. My friends and I talk about this every day. No, it never gets easier; you just learn to cope better. Even if you don't learn to cope better, you begin complaining less and panicking less; you just deal with sh*t and move on to the next challenge that awaits you. All our loved ones have done that, and we are doing that too. That's how life works.

    Amidst all that chaos, if you manage to find your hiraeth on a random Saturday morning, as I did, appreciate the realization and make room for it without disrupting the rhythm of your present. Life is lived in the little pleasures and small breaks. A lifelong vacation is no vacation; the key to everything beautiful is balance. It took me some time to realize it, but I finally saw it, and I am working on accepting it every day. Guwahati isn't my hiraeth; it never will be, but it could be the place that allows me to breathe freely whenever I choose to visit my hiraeth. So, let's bloom where we are planted and reach for the stars! Let's embrace change as it embraces us. Fernweh or hiraeth, willingly or unwillingly, one must make room for reality whenever it knocks on your door. It's at my door now, so I must leave now. Thank you for being patient readers. Have a lovely weekend!