The good thing is that sometimes, we get to choose.

While I was on the train today, a friend of mine asked me a very simple question.

friend: "How is your life here different from that in ur hometown?"
me: "well, it's very different actually. Like.. I have to walk everywhere here, I do my laundry, I buy my food, sometimes I cook.. urmm, well it's pretty much like it. I do everything by myself"

But it dawned on me a little later that perhaps,what's different is a bit more than that. When I had a phone call the other day with my parents talking about whoever and whatever it is that's happened to them, it all pretty much kept coming back to me. It's that same old typical home drama, the intrigues, the hassles, the same old problems, the same old solutions, the nonsensical and on top of all that, the unpleasant feeling that has been long gone. It was like a flashback, but in a simulated kind of version. You know, it's like all those simulation machines where you sit on the chair and it shakes u around like there's no tomorrow, while there's a big fat screen in front of u and you feel like being chased by the dinosaur in it. It's like you have that very real and intense fright of getting gulped by the T-Rex, but at the same time you are relieved cos part of you realizes that it's actually fake.

Well, I had the same exact feeling. I sat on my desk and the eerie unpleasant feeling felt like it's creeping up on me out of the speaker of the phone but at the same time, I was as relieved as earthly possible. And so I realized that there were things that I had happily abandoned when I left. If I were to give any proper answer, this is how different it is. I've left it there, and I don't even miss it.

But apart from all that, and whatever that is.. I love my hometown. Only the thing is, not in a way I love it here.

friend: so do u like it here?
me: yes..... I actually do.