Crying alone in the elevator feels more like home than anywhere else

on moving out, home and new feelings.

If you have been here long enough, you know that I have moved out for uni. I’m listening to Chinbien right now, sitting in the library. I love the library, it makes me feel like home. I was thinking about home a while back, with my friend. He told me how bullying me makes him feel like home, reading The Namesake makes him feel like home. He also said that home is a sad, almost melancholic feeling, but its home - not the noun, the verb.

Very new emotions have made home inside me lately, calling your brother and not knowing what he had for lunch, thinking if you nani had her medicines, eating chicken tikka without your father, getting drunk on champagne and not telling anyone (I did tell my substack audience haha). But all these feelings aren’t bad, they are just new. Yesterday, I received a text from my brother’s best friend saying ‘hi didi, Aditya (my brother) was telling me that he misses you a lot’, and for a second I felt so sad, almost as if a desolate stillness enfolded itself into me, and this stillness isn’t leaving. Its as though my day keeps on going and I laugh, I eat, I make the most of each day but somewhere deep down, I feel very still. I don’t miss my family as much as I thought I would, but I know they miss me. I don’t think my brother is doing okay, my parents refuse to go inside my room. My nani was telling my nana that ‘hamari family ka bahot strong pillar chala gya’ - ‘a very strong pillar of our family has gone’. I feel culpable for living a life which is so new, so huge that I fail to be there for my family.

I remember when my parents left me here, my mom was crying, my dad was also almost crying - I held back my tears because crying never did anyone ever good - ‘because crying never did anyone ever good’, my english teacher used to say that. I told my mom, ‘Mumma, whoever I meet in life, whoever I have met in life. I will always have a limited amount of time with them - months, days, years, etc. They’ll be finite, but with you, I’ll always have 9 months more’. My mom cried a lot of after that.
As I was going up my room in the elevator, I cried - a lot. Not for a long time though, just from ground floor to the third floor but it felt like home.

You see, in that moment I figured the verb home. It seems to be a very far fetched idea right now, but I know I’ll find it soon. Maybe in the skipping 2 meals, eating dark chocolate with my roomate, listening to Heera by Peter Cat Recording Co., doing my girlfriend’s makeup, looking at couples making out, eating chicken tikka with new friends, walking 15k steps everyday. My stomach growling feels like home, reading a book but not having a spot to read it in makes me feel like home, receiving a ‘hi hru’ from old friends makes me feel like home and pink sunsets make me feel like home.

This isn’t much of an article either, it is more of a journal entry for new feelings. Below is a compilation of all my favourite photos from the past 2 weeks.