My spirit animal is a crab

Everything everyone says about leaving home and moving to another city, is true. All the clichés. Home cooked food, the scent of the city you grew up in, a bickering old but adorable couple, an elderly dog. The feeling of home. I was itching to get rid of it, wash that feeling off. Feel the breeze, romanticise living alone in a strange city.

Today, I heard myself defending Delhi, feeling nostalgic about things that I was always so critical of. Could’ve never imagined I had it in me, fighting for where I’m from. Now, here I am, in Bombay. Paying rent. Learning how to order grocery and have food made in a manner that it won’t go to waste, and I won’t fall sick eating three days old udon. People who run households are mathematical geniuses. How do you calculate all of this all the time?

Oh and, how on earth do people decide what to eat every day. I have a chart. My partner made one to make my life easier. He knows I’m a picky eater. But, I don’t feel like following it on most days.

Sometimes I wonder, if this would’ve been easier had I left home early. Not when I was so set in my ways, comfortable with who I was and had reached a point of utter complacency.

I’ve always liked this about myself, I break the cycle before it begins to bore me to death. But, it’s always hard. It sucks the joy out of me, and then gives me a new lease of life. It’s like a crab, molting.

But, exactly like a crab, there is a newfound vulnerability that we’re getting acquainted to. I tell my mother I love her, I take the time to respond to the links my father sends on WhatsApp, even if it’s to make fun of it. I’ve never done either of those things.

It’s been an emotional rollercoaster, a logistical nightmare turned anomaly, a confusing fresh start. Bitter and sweet, difficult and freeing, but at the end of the day, inevitable. It’s time to let it rip.