Only after leaving home, I believe I truly started adulting.
Because that's when I started making decisions, making mistakes, being responsible for someone else, being really alone and learning to live without a guardrail.
These are the experiences that mold you. And where you experience them - your surroundings, play a tremendous role in molding the kind of adult that you become.
Maybe that is why, whenever I visit my hometown, I revert to the naïve child that I was. I'm lucky to have my childhood home still, and every visit there effortlessly takes me back to those times. Within a day of my visit, all 16 years' worth of life take a backseat.
Example: while there, I couldn't even recall the name of a street that I pass by every day to work!
In my mind, I was smoothly back into the groove that I left 16 years ago - a puzzle piece fitting back in.
Floating in this fancy. I accompanied my mother to a store. Towards the end of our time there, as we were ready to leave, the sweet lady helping us asked me, 'Where are you from?'.
I looked at her, surprised, and gave her the usual answer I give to that question: 'Well, here… Chennai'.
'Oh, you don't look like you're from here'.
THUD.
Yea, well, that was me - no longer floating.
Apparently it was not as smooth a fit that I thought I had!
And there, in my hometown, I had the immigrant experience - now everyone thinks you're 'not from here'!
Let me choose to take this as having become a citizen of the world instead - யாதும் ஊரே யாவரும் கேளிர் 😊
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