In pursuit of growth, leaving is necessary.

To many growing up, the people they saw everyday just seemed to stay on for what seemed like forever. No one decided that they no longer felt like staying in your life and just left. It just didn’t happen like that. I know this to be true because I have seen how others are unable to cope with goodbyes in their adult life mostly because they haven’t experienced separation at a young age. Death was a thing that happened to other people’s grandparents. Divorce happened to bad people. And moving schools was a thing only people whose families were financially unstable did.

But for me, at the early age of nine I found out that we were moving to a different country, and that meant un-knowing everyone I knew in my small circle of life and re-learning whatever there was to learn in my new life that is about to unfold. It wasn’t particularly painful, but it was a little confusing. For a kid finishing primary three, I was bummed that I wasn’t able to upgrade to the ‘kakak-kakak bag’ in the next year and I was so looking forward that. (Basically our school had uniformed bags. Primaries 1-3 got green backpacks and primary 4 onwards got a black sling messenger bag which I thought was so cool.) Oh the disappointment I carried with me was pretty massive to me at the time.

For the first year after that I wrote to my friends and they wrote back. After about 3-4 correspondences the letters came to a halt. I can’t recall who stopped writing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was me.

Ever since the big move I sort of found joining and leaving something to be quite natural for me. It wasn’t a big deal as many made it to be. I could never understand farewell parties where you’re supposed to make the person leaving feel awkward whilst people they hardly knew shed tears, handing them parting gifts. Once in college there was a senior I knew from my previous school who was leaving and my college mates made a video for him. We’ve never spoken before although our families knew each other. But my classmates thought it would be a good idea to get everyone involved, so I had a 15 second slot in the video. It was the cringiest one I ever made. I made a speech a bit too long and deep for my liking and smiled way too wide, and I meant nothing of it. It was an unintentional front I put up to hide how awkward I felt, and seeing it play on the big screen; I regret it to this day.

Now as an adult I find the act of leaving or exiting to be something revolutionary. I now understand why my parents made the decision they did back in 2004. They no longer felt that the environment they were in provided them with any opportunity for growth for their family, particularly us children. And leaving was necessary in pursuit of a greater good. Eventhough they had it tough from their own families, the very people they loved.

Now at 26 I find myself instantly uprooting whenever I feel that my surroundings no longer feed my hunger for growth; no longer serve my purpose; no longer reflects my identity. It doesn’t mean that I was never in love with my environment or the people that made it what it was. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ve always hated it or was dishonest from the beginning. I guess I just fell out of love with it. I don’t particularly like the way I act in spaces where I no longer feel an affiliation, at least not for long. I’ve seen so many people put up with commitments they have to fake a smile in and it bothers me because I could never. No matter how infatuated I was with a place or a person at one time, I cannot forgive myself to continue being in that place or with that person when it is me who has had a change of heart.

I’m seeing many fault the people who leave. But know that in search of growth, leaving is necessary. It is not cold in nature or mean; like I said, it doesn’t have to be hate that fuels one’s decision to leave. It is merely that one’s view of his own world has shifted and the environment he’s currently in doesn’t support it. Like a software in a hardware- you can’t operate a software that isn’t supported on a machine that has stayed the same or that has slowed down.

It is that crossroad that I find myself in yet again. Probably the 10th time in 2 years or the 101th time in 15 years, but I find myself to be a stranger again in a place I once was in love with. And I tell myself, if you’re not going to recognise and respect your own discomfort, then can you bear seeing yourself in the mirror and seeing the results of a growth that is stunted?