Why we Leave, Why we Stay

Blog Post Two 12/10/23

I had never been asked more about my life until I began waiting tables in a resort on an island just off the west coast of Scotland. It was definite that at least once a night I would be asked where are you from and then quite often followed up with why here. Most nights I welcomed the spotlight, throwing back “Honestly I ask myself that every day.” or giving them the well-rehearsed speech with a slight personalised twist, usually based on their level of interest. Some tables were privy to my family history. Somehow I would find myself in the middle of my Grandparent's immigration story, listing off how many siblings my Dad has or explaining why my brother lives in Columbia. I retold the story of how I ended up here so many times it began to feel outside of myself. I had packaged the last year of my life into a two-minute consumable, family-friendly speech with no loose ends. I had turned my history into a piece of fiction that I recited like an actor mid-monologue and if I timed it well I could exist the stage without the follow-up question of what’s next. See on most days I didn’t mind the life interrogation but on an odd day when I was either, too tired, too hungry, too homesick, too emotional, or all of the above if someone asked me; why here, what’s next, what are you wanting to do with your life - it usually sent me into a spiral or ‘why’s’. 

I left Canada on November 7th, 2022 but before I said the big goodbye to my country of origin, I said a mini-big goodbye to the city that I had spent the last four years of my life in, Vancouver. I moved out to the West Coast of Canada for university in 2018. Vancouver was the city that stood the backdrop to four years of heartbreaks, drunken nights, bike rides, endless coffee dates, the grief of the loss of my last grandparent, and the frightening unknown of the pandemic. That city was the sight of my first shared house and my first solo apartment. I remember the fear I felt, eighteen years old, saying goodbye to my parents before they drove away and left me on my own in a city on the other side of the country. I remember watching that once terrifying skyline, now full of memories and goodbyes, look not so frightening, as it grew smaller and smaller from the airplane window, the last time I flew out.

Aug 27, 2022 (A journal entry written about a month before I moved out of Vancouver) 
Right now I can’t see why I’m leaving this life. This feeling is two-sided - I’m enjoying being here but I think everything looks a little better because I know I’m leaving (graduation goggles). … I know he will be okay and my friends will be as well. As for me, I can recognise this lovely life I’ve built and still hold no guilt for choosing to go see more.

Stories change and adapt, one day you hit the punch line with a different tone, and all of a sudden it makes it feel sorrowful rather than happy. When packing up my life in Vancouver the story of why I was leaving went like this, 

I’m comfortable here but the only reason I’d be staying is because I’ve been here not because anything in particular is keeping me. 

I still understand that and I think it holds to this day but with hindsight, I wish I had appreciated the comfort instead of being afraid of it. I think I left the city so quickly and so abruptly because I was afraid I would become too comfortable and never leave. But this fear, which I have been carrying for my whole young adult life actually in turn prevented me from feeling comfortable with being in comfort, with being in rest. Call it internalised capitalism or the constant need for productivity to prove my worth on this earth or the fear of falling behind but it’s bullshit. A rat-race mindset that will never be satiated. So I left, knowing I was leaving behind the city I was familiar with, friends I loved, and a life I could’ve kept on living. There are a million reasons why people might stay or go, for me the reason I left was because I thought there might be more, and maybe it was bravery or naivety but something in me was willing to go find out.

So why are you still here, on this island, in this job? My second least favourite question as my mind is mid-service and I haven’t enjoyed the last three weeks of work. When I haven’t been able to call home because of the time difference and when truthfully I don’t know why I’m still here but I have theories and maybe that's what life is, an unexplainable sequence of events that we then try to apply meaning to, in order to feel so semblance of control. So forgive me if this reads as a persuasive essay to myself on why I’m still here but it might be a few or all of the following reasons; 

Comfort - it finally feels nice to sit in my own space after three months of living in shared hostel dorms that smelt of feet, food, and farts. It’s a different life not having to lock up your belongings every time you leave the room or close your eyes and I can’t even express the luxury that is a bathroom cupboard. 

Familiarity - this one goes hand in hand with comfort but the feeling of being known was one I craved most while travelling. Homesickness didn’t compare to the guttural yearning of wanting to run into someone I knew and who knew me. The desire I had to start a conversation with someone who already knew my groundwork, whom I didn’t have to list off my bullet-point school, travel or family history was unlike any want I had ever had before. It was a bit of magic when you found someone who felt familiar but then it was that much harder to have to part ways the next day. 

Money - not a key factor because I could pick up and find a job elsewhere but the safety and peace of mind that has come with being able to save money while being in the middle of my time living abroad has been a huge weight off my mind. 

Love and people - I have never made decisions in my life based on other people but after traveling, other people and the connections we have to them and with them seem to be what makes life worth living. No matter where I was, what country I was in, or what language was being spoken the most common thing I observed was the need for connection and the desire to be seen, known, and loved. In the form of a mother and their child, two elderly people holding hands on the bus, a whole family screaming their way through the airport, the longing glance of two lovers, or the tender embrace of a grief-stricken friend. It was the beautiful mundane acts of love that made me think we all might be living for one another. That made me think how we all just want to be held in the love of someone else, even for just a moment, to make the world feel less lonely. I hope to never take that for granted again and perhaps that’s why I’m still here after nine months, I've been learning how to appreciate it all. I've been learning how to love, and how to be comfortable in the comfort.  

That was the answer I would want to give but in short, my family-friendly, neatly packaged response would be “I’m saving up money before I go travel again.” And with that, my one-woman-table-side show would come to an end. Currents drawn.