Independence Day didn’t really mean the most important to me I must admit. Don’t we all take it for granted, like a matter of way perhaps. I was no different. It was another holiday for me. I ‘needed’ the rest believe me. Every minute I could get it, was Independence for me.
4 years back as of today (August 15, 2016) it crash landed on me, kind of. I still remember that day and know I shall never ever forget. I was so so scared, I had NO shit in my pants or wherever it is supposed to be. Oh well, maybe I am just over-reacting, yeah, but it was almost like that. I was to leave the next evening to a place I have never ever visited or seen, just heard of and not very pleasant things I must say. And no, absolutely it isn’t one of your run off the mill place, that you fantasise to take off to, to have a romantic moment, or an adventurous time or to rake in the moolah. For me, this was all of that and more all at once. I was to live there. Live life as it comes, each minute, each hour and each day.
I had never ever lived alone, ever. I think back now and wonder, ‘Oh what a cushioned life I led’. Family, friends, colleagues, strangers. My strangers. Strangers I could, if I wished to, have a word with or not. Now I have is only unknown ‘not my’ strangers, sadly. Strangers that I cannot chit chat with. The constant chatter around me was replaced by eerie silence many a times. Anyway, I was really trying to be so stoic and courageous for my parents, my son and most of all, me. I was withering inside. I was so so scared. Writing this, I am literally crying, my body shaking. Its like re-living those moments. Long arduous moments.
Independence. What a word. What a feeling. An emotion that overwhelms. Its so real, you can feel it. Positively, it was a good thing to have moved away. It taught me and Kevin too many a things. We surely do take a lot of things for granted and this taught us that some things you just cannot. Simple things seemed Herculean and when achieved I felt like God. Ok ok almost like Him.
I am glad I took this step and dont regret it. I absolutely miss being back home for the simplicity of it all and then yet this all seems like another day of adventure, another day at giving a new life a shot. Cheerios!
Vagabond Rootz 