I didn't know, I didn't know

I lied. Getting over Singapore hasn't happened as yet. I am still trying. I live in denial about missing the city, the places, the people and my life there. The thing about home is that it'll never go away ever thankfully so I never miss it as much. Plus being from Calcutta very few things change as such and my school friends are permanently stationed here. I always come back to the same comfortable feeling of home, mum, our conversations, my room, my girls, the same haunts, the coffee shops change once in a while but that is that. It is still us, school friends, Park Street, same watering holes and the conversations too border on familiarity with each other, having grown up together and I wouldn't want this to go away at all. This is my anchor each time I leave a new place and begin elsewhere I know that Calcutta doesn't change as much, for me at least.

I was in Delhi for a week for my best friend's wedding and it was just fun, fun, fun but I honestly felt nothing coming back to it after 2 years. I have spent almost 5 years there and the longer part of my twenties were spent in Delhi but I feel this strange disassociation from the city. There is no nostalgia attached with the city. I loved that place when I was younger and now I cannot see myself there. I'd much rather stick around in Cal for a bit rather than heading back to Delhi. But of course one gets a job there and one shall be forced to relocate to Delhi yet again. Arghhhhhhh!

I am not gonna write about SG. I am not gonna write about my last few days there. I am not gonna write about my night out at Timbre, the music, Bettina, Andy, A and I dancing our hearts out. I am not gonna write about the drunken picnic on Marina Barrage, my last day at the Uni as I emptied my locker and returned the keys, entering the library the last time, my last conversation with P in her lovely balcony, standing in the beach with A that last evening, dropping Tina to Uni and she calling back in tears saying she'll miss me, goodbye to A in the MRT and it felt like a movie, a movie I didn't want to end as yet and hell I wanted a happy ending.

Here I am sleepwalking through my life here. Somedays I am just numb as if the last one year never happened. I make myself believe that I have been here forever. Did I ever have all those conversations with P on her balcony? Did A and I ever walk through Boat Quay singing songs? It is like a dream and I pinch myself to make myself believe all of that actually happened. I lived a lifetime in 9 months, I did. Now to live the rest of my life here and some how it doesn't seem an inviting prospect without some of those lovely people I met.

"And me? Well I’ll carry the thought of you doing just fine. I’ll carry the thought of you meeting new people, and holding new pairs of hands, and clutching people closer than you ever clutched me. I’ll remember that when you came to me it was a blessing. A temporary blessing that we’ll one day see if we can make permanent. But for now, it’s you and all the little lives you’ve got to go out there and touch.

You’re ready. That’s why I’m letting you go. And everyone else? Everyone else who gets you for this next little “I’ll see you everyday” sort of while? They win. I don’t feel like much of a winner in this moment, but them? They absolutely win."