Dear Friend,
Apart from all the experiences, memories and fun that
travelling or pursuing your dream for that matter give you, it screws up your
brain. It screws it up badly.
When you move into a new city in the same country, the
feeling of newness is overwhelming and the same feeling is all the more intense
when you move into a new city in a different country. Different place,
different language, different people, different food, different systems and
different bed. It’s not easy because you’re afraid, consciously or
subconsciously that you won’t fit in, people won’t like you and that they’ll
judge you. Maybe it is true, maybe you will never fit in, maybe people won’t
like you and just maybe they’ll even judge you. But then these are the things
that you experience initially. Things change. Like they did for me and I don’t
think I’ll ever be able to understand how things changed or why they changed.
But it was beautiful the way they did and it felt great.
I am going to name this transition from feeling
awkward to confident in a new place as the “Retzer Effect”, after the guy who
changed it for me. I don’t think he realizes that himself. I don’t think he
realizes how he walks into people’s lives and leaves a mark that would never
go, never fade.
Coming back to why travelling screws up your brain; it
is because you meet new people and they kind of become a part of your life,
even if it’s in the tiniest way possible, they do and you talk and grow close,
become friends and things start to settle and you start to fit in and it’s time
to go. You don’t know if you’ll ever see that person or those people ever again
in your life and it hurts. It hurts a lot. It hurts to know that life won’t be
the same for the next few weeks until reality sinks in and you are able to get
it into your system entirely that you won’t be seeing them again.
It screws up your brain, trust me.
I don’t know about other people and neither am I
concerned about them, but I take time and it breaks me to know that I won’t be
able to see them again.
I’ll miss the time I played UNO, I’ll miss the time
people here tried to teach me German but the only thing I remember is
“Gesundheit”, I’ll miss the time I played table tennis with this really amazing
guy, who actually taught me how to play it in the first place and never got mad
for all the times I missed a shot or played bad, I’ll miss the time when we
shared all of our “balls” jokes, I’ll miss the time when we played basketball
even though I was dead tired to move after the day’s gruelling practice
sessions, I’ll miss the time when we sat on the park bench till late at night
talking like old friends, trying to understand each other’s country better,
I’ll miss the time when I sat at the breakfast table for a long time, hoping
time would freeze somehow, I’ll miss the time when we sat outside the dormitory
talking for the last time. I’ll miss so many things. Not just because it was
fun, but because I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like that again. I wished,
I so wished that time would just stand still a little longer, that I could
relive it again. But turns out I am another human being living in a world
desperate to go back and make memories come alive, just one more time. Just one
more time. Is it too much to ask for?
I know that it’ll all pass and that it won’t matter so
much a few weeks later. But it does now and I cannot take it away.
It was beautiful while it lasted and I am unspeakably
glad and happy to have known someone as rare and amazing and a beautiful human
being. He changed the way I saw so many things and to some extent our beliefs
matched a great deal.
I hope someday, we meet again, someday when it’ll
matter a lot more than it did now, someday when I wouldn’t have to bid a
goodbye forever.
Till then I’ll remember you, till then I’ll never let
go of the hope of meeting you again, till then I’ll remember how I transitioned
from feeling awkward to confident, till then I’ll miss you....
Love always,
Urja
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