Home Alone

Since leaving home at 18, my attitude towards my physical space has been temporary and communal. I moved around so much, and the fact that all my belongings fit neatly into a suitcase was the epitome of freedom. And even the past few years, living in one city for the longest in my adult life, my living space was a collective space for me and my teammates. It was sometimes part of our office, sometimes a pop-up engineering lab, and sometimes a hostel where anyone on our team was always welcome to crash. Despite my name being on the lease, I always left my keys with the team while I travelled and my very caring landlord got used to the constant rotation of the Okra crew. The combination of an intense and consuming work life and the shared nature of my space, didn’t leave much time to settle in, but I truly revelled in the constant adventure. 

It was only through some tougher times did I realize how much I relied on work (and the physical space of the office) as my escape. And without it, I was pretty lost. As 2019 came to a close, I was surprised to be feeling down and alone in a place that was responsible for the most thrilling years of my life so far. And in those quieter moments, without the constant buzz and stimulation of work, I realized how much I lacked a sense of home. 

Around the same time, we decided to move Okra headquarters to Malaysia and for the first time, I would be relocating with the intention of staying a while. Although I built up this move to KL as a chance to redefine my lifestyle and start over with a new rhythm, it didn’t go according to plan (see my previous post) and it took a while to pick up my mission of settling in. But finally, a couple months ago, I moved into my own apartment, marking the first apartment that has felt like it was truly mine. I hung up clothes for the first time in 6 months, stocked the spice cabinet, and allowed myself to buy things without worrying if they’d fit in my suitcase.

On better days, I appreciate how good it feels to wake up every morning and feel at home. I value having this safe and comforting space that I know how to take care of myself in. Being here is also a chance to be open to new people and new experiences, even when it’s tough to be starting over. And, even if I haven’t executed on this too much yet, I like that this move could be a step towards being comfortable in my existence without my work to define me- a place to build a more sustainable lifestyle going forward.

But then there are the days where the weight of feeling far away is crushing. This year hasn’t been an ideal time to meet new people and boldly embrace new experiences, and since I ended up being the only person from my team in Malaysia (and by now you can probably imagine how hard being away from my team is for me), I don’t have a support network to fall back on. It has been almost 2 years since I’ve been home, I miss Natasha with every ounce of me, and every day that goes by I hate that I don’t know when I’ll see my loved ones next. And these feelings of longing are only made more complicated by the fact that if I leave Malaysia, my new home, I won’t know when I can come back. I would have to leave like I was leaving for good. 

Living abroad for many years now, I’ve had my fair share of visa mishaps and complications, but in the past, most problems could be solved with a simple fine, an exit/re-enter, or a short trip to any number of places while I sorted things out. Being trapped in immigration uncertainty during this year of all years, where moving around is near impossible and one move could result in months of chaos, I am extra aware of how this lack of freedom can be suffocating. In no way can I claim to understand even 1% of the fears and struggles many refugees face around the world, but having spent this entire year with a latent fear that I could be forced to abandon everything with little notice, I relate to the tension of creating a home and building stability while acknowledging the underlying fragility of it all. Especially as we are squarely in the holiday season now, I’m caught between longing to see my loved ones but also knowing that doing so would turn my life upside down for quite a long time. One thing is for certain, mobility is a privilege and learning to live without it, even only temporarily, has not been easy. 

I guess that’s what this year has been about, learning to be grateful for what we have and acknowledging and dealing with the struggles in what we don’t. I am processing insecure feelings of missing out and “falling behind” from the people I love while also appreciating that I have the most amazing team and unbelievable friends and family who have stuck with me and kept me close in their hearts despite not having seen each other in what feels like forever. I am processing fear for so many people at home who have and continue to be destroyed by rampant hate while also feeling a powerful sense of hope when I think about young girls looking up to a groundbreaking woman in the White House. And I am processing that while my loneliness feels like it will last forever and my new home will never be bursting with energy and life, someday soon things will change. I will again celebrate birthdays around people I love, soak in the merriment and love with my family during the holidays, embrace adventures and discover new inspiration, cook and laugh and dance and make countless new memories with dearest friends, take a vacation, and simply be overwhelmed with excitement. And until then, I’m just going to accept more days spent dissolving into my couch than I ever would have anticipated prior to 2020.

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I charged my camera for the first time in 9 months, and all of these photos are from within 10 minutes of my apartment. It was nice to look at the world through the viewfinder again, even if in a pretty narrow range.

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