Shifting continents

Each time I shift a continent, I want to abandon this blog. But somehow, I come back to it. And I come back to it with a mixed bag of emotions, with an uneasy heart, with confused feelings. Moving from one country to another is a difficult thing to do when you care about both places. Leaving behind so much (both ways) when you travel is a hard thing to do.  

You can prepare yourself for weather, logistics, jetlag and other banalities. You can drive yourself crazy preparing, getting gifts, collecting favorite things, arranging, rearranging, “settling in”. Yes, you can busy yourself in a bid to avoid dealing with the emotional adjustment it takes. Homesickness, a sense of not belonging, faces of those you leave behind, being in one place and thinking of another. The need to adapt emotionally hits me each time. Both ways.

Why then do we subject ourselves to this? Do all immigrants – temporary or permanent feel this way? Can we truly love two places? Two places that may be so different… Two places that we love for entirely different reasons…Is it like cheating on a spouse? And which one is the spouse even? Is there truly only one true love?  

So is it easier to simply never leave? To never explore. To never widen horizons. To simply never change. To simply never have to deal with change?  

For, once you leave, you can never go back to the ‘same as before’. The round peg turns into a square and can never fit back in.  But again, isn’t that true of all of life? Immigrant experience or otherwise. Of growing up…Of moving around... Of change… Of life...

Do we as pegs keep getting squarer? Do we know the squareness of our being, yet remember the round... Or do we not realize the squareness of our being and imagine we will continue to fit in the round…

I have no answers. If you have any, do share them with me. But something tells me that accepting the duality in most situations, and the seemingly bigamous nature of our choices may be a first step…