When I first became aware of the "What We Dont Tell You About Living Abroad" conspiracy the only thing I found to vent about was the housework... the cleaning of bathrooms, the endless cooking of meals, the taking care of yourself a.k.a. the most tedious job in the whole world. Why had none of my friends who'd been through all this never bitched about the things I'd come to loathe? I pondered and pondered and finally understood why but only after I had gotten over my momentary fascination for these things, after I got over thinking that there was an art to cleaning the floor. And yes, the only answer that satisfies me is that we are afraid of coming across as elitist, feudalistic snobs. We do not want to complain about the things that half the world does for themselves, without ever knowing about how we, the supposedly poorer other half of the world live. We are after all one of the few remaining countries where manual labour remains cheap. So that was one mystery resolved.

But it is only after reaching the crossroads of  "Going Home" and "Staying Here" do I feel the full impact of the phenomenon. Why did they never tell us for exmaple that our already fractured, post-modernist souls would shatter even further by the end of our studying-abroad stints? Why did they never tell us that we would begin to think and swear in a language not-so-foreign-anymore? That we would irrevocably grow up? That we would discover things about ourselves that would repulse, surprise and endear us to ourselves? That during those years there would be a silence within us, a silence that could only be filled by voices from the past, from home? What did they not tell us that by living with 6 people they would become part of our consciousness in the most bizarre ways? That we would feel as is 6 different parts of us slept in different rooms, with individual trayectories that we could never fathom? Why dint they tell us about love and how it would never be the same again?

Because I feel all those things now. I feel like I could never be happy just being in one of these places and not the other. That I will always wander around "over there" while my body stayed "over here". They never told us that it would feel like while the people from home were the only ones who would ever understand us, they would never be able to understand what we were in all those months. Kind of like soldiers. But this was no war although it was so different from home. This was no war but at night I felt tired and alone. This was no war but we'll have to start all over again. Why dint they ever tell us?

This is rhetoric;so I'll forgive you if you dont get through it.

Every one lives by a truth, or at least by one if you are normal and not yet relegated to the pages of history.

So lets start again.

Everyone's life is made up of truths. Small ones like the admonitions of parents like never touch/move/gesture to anything with your foot; big ones like the way you see yourself.

These truths aren't beliefs, there isn't always a spirituality associated with them. They aren't limited to temples and large quiet spaces. These truths mould your every day, make you choose one of the roads in the yellow wood. Has your god ever made you do that?

Even if you try to ignore them, these truths persist through rain and shine and tears, they cling on even while your every act negates them They hang on; spiriting away the sand under your feet, waiting to wash you away one day when you realise you sold your soul to multinationals despite those college dreams of socialism or never fell in love after the first time because you "knew" they would come back.

What are they? Are they those most optimistic, idealistic parts of you hidden under many layers of city soot? Why do we need them if they only come back to make us unhappy? Wouldnt it be easier to give up? To lower your expectations? To not look back? To change the way life seems to want us to?

I think optimism should definitely have a sell-by date.