Saw this on IG today and it just summed up how I felt
when I was in the thick of planning my move back to Penang.
No, I never lived abroad. Never had the chance. I studied, began my career and started my family in my homeland 🇲🇾, except I was a 3.5-hour drive away from the city in which I was born.
Moving to KL at 17, I didn't think anything would change. I didn't feel the difference nor expect the divide when I left. I didn't foresee any detachment. I mean, I was born and bred in Penang! NRIC 07! I would always be a Penangite! And a proud one at that! 🫡
But still, it happened. This happened. 👆
It was only when I was preparing for my move back to my hometown a good 18 years later when I was in my mid-thirties, that the distinction between the me then and the me now became obvious. I realised that I didn't know how to move back home,... because home didn't feel like home anymore. 🫤
I left a carefree teenage student at the cusp of life.
I returned, a wife and a mother, and later a survivor,
with a business to run
and a home and family to care for.
I can't explain it any other way. It really, really felt like time stood still the whole time I was away, and I had outgrown this life that once was mine. To be honest, Penang was almost unrecognisable. I couldn't get to where I wanted to go without Waze. (I learned to drive in KL. 😅) And even old friends had turned into familiar strangers almost two decades later.
Still, I had to try.
Refamiliarising myself with my little island took a while. In fact, it took longer than expected, no thanks to Covid and the lockdown. And although I still miss my life and friends in KL so many, many muchness, 4.5 years later, I can finally say that I'm starting to grow accustomed to life back in Penang. 🏝️
I've kinda settled on my favourite hawkers, haunts, and hangouts; places where the aunties, uncles, and service staff know me, my name and my order well enough for me to sit down and just have the food arrive. (Every day go same place, eat same-same. 😆) I've rekindled old friendships and made new ones. But yes, I still use Waze everywhere I go; at least now it's mainly to avoid traffic. (Penang also always jam.)
Is this home? Well, my house here feels like home. 🏡 But beyond these four walls, I still have a ways to go before I can honestly say that Penang is, without a doubt, where I feel most at home at as opposed to anywhere else in the world. In the mean time, I guess this is my truth:
Penang is my base, KL is my escape and Family is my home.