Moving

As I am about to put away the remainder of my boxes, a sudden strange feeling overrides me. The last golden rays of the setting sun gleam through the windows as I drop to the bed. Not my bed. At least, not yet. It will become my bed soon enough though. It always does. I’ll just have to give it a day, or two at best.

I’ve always been quite good at it actually- folding up my room into a couple of boxes and then embracing a new one every year. Twenty houses in eighteen years. Standard military kid things.

Then why the sudden emptiness? What exactly am I missing? Surely not my old bed which I had had for only five months... So why are the corners of my eye suddenly moist?

Now I’m full on sobbing but I can’t even place the reason. Pathetic.

For some reason, my mind wanders back to a conversation I had once had with my old guitar teacher…

“500 miles গানটা তা তামার প্রায় হয়য়ই গগয়য়য়ে ! এরপর তামার পেন্দ ময়া একটা গান করব, তকমন? এখন, 2nd verse টা বাজাও তা আয়রকবার । আগম গাচ্ছি -

Not a shirt on my back Not a penny to my name Lord I can’t go back home This ole’ wayy”

“আিাুগম গক আমায়ক বলয় পারয়ব গানটা কী গনয়য় ?” “গায়ন মানুষটট ময়ন হয়ার বাসা তেয়ক অয়নক দয়ূর তকাোও চয়ল এয়সয়ে , এখন আর গিয়র তেয় পারয়ব না,াই না সযার,?” “হাাঁ, টিকই বয়লেুগম। গকন্তু এখায়ন না, বাসা বা ‘home’ বলয় তকায়না বাগি তবাঝায়গন । আসয়ল মানুষটট ার গনয়জর জীবয়নরই একটা অংশ তপেয়ন তিয়ল এয়সয়ে , তেখায়ন গিয়রোওয়ার জনযার কায়ে আর তকায়না পে তনই।”

I don’t think I was able to fully grasp what he had told me that day, but his words had stayed with me nevertheless.

And now, they are hitting me like hail on a tin shed.

I realize it’s not my old room that I’m crying for. Nor my old neighbourhood. Not even the stray cat I used to feed every day for half a year.

No, I am crying for myself. For a version of myself that I’ve left behind and will never be able to go back to. Not because I have undergone a major change in personality or lost a loved one. Nor because I have chopped off my hair or changed my hobbies. But because time has passed over me.

Because maa no longer has to put my hair up in two braids before school. Because the “আমার বাংলা বই, ” that still lays on my little sister’s desk has dissipated from mine. Because baba can no longer pick me up and spin me around when he gets home from work. Because somewhere along the way, I have played the last game of “জুা তচার,” with my friends and have not even realized it.

Without a lasting place to call home, from an early age, I learnt to make my habits my home. The সন্ধ্যায়বলার চা, the বারান্দায় রাখা তচয়ার - they became my home. It doesn’t matter if the chair is a different shape or the teacup is a different colour every year. They are still my home.

But now here I am. Gradually being pulled into the whirlwind of adulthood as my grip on childhood habits slowly loosens. As pieces of the home I created slowly break down.

And this is perhaps the last time I will make a place “home” with my family before I leave them and step out to university on my own. No more old habits will be there to help me familiarize the unknown dorms. No চা,,to warm my heart.

So, as I sit on the brink of truly losing my home for the first time, I allow myself to breakdown. I let the tears flood over me.

I’ve never changed my home before…not really.

I wonder if I’ll be able to make it through.