Have you reached yet?

“Have you reached yet?”, he asks from the other side of the phone.

“Where?” , I ask.

“You said you were going home”.

I pause for a moment. It was a simple straightforward question. A yes or no would do. But strangely I couldn’t decide upon the right one to pick. And I realise a simple yes or no question could turn into an essay just because of somebody’s choice of words. This was one such. 

“Home - no, not yet. But yes, I have reached the house safely. I think there is still a long way till I could call this ‘Home’. May be I never could. “

“ Set up a temporary home, na. A place you could call your own. A place that shouts you” , he tells me and I smile.

I smile at the thought of it, I smile wondering what my place would be like, I smile not knowing what to make of it. “Sounds good” was my initial thought. “But for how long?” was my second. “Will I be able to?” and “how will I?” followed.

“It’s scary and overwhelming”, I tell him after a minute and I meant it. The fear is real. Nobody knows how lonely it is, to not have a place to call ‘Home’. But then setting up one when you don’t know is even more frightening. The act of planting yourself in a new environment, all the packing, the setting up….that too alone is not going to be easy.

“I would rather stay where I am. And may be later when I am comfortable, I will make the switch. I will build a home.”

“Later when?”, he asks me, curious , may be even a bit sarcastic.

“I dunno. May be when I have made peace with myself”, I tell him.

“Don’t you need a comfortable space for it? Isn’t that what you call ‘Home’? 

And he is right. I realise I am in this bad loop of conflicts and confusions and I am afraid to let go of something to gain another. In the end, I stay at the same spot, hoping things would change on it’s own. I keep going to the wrong places and people, giving them second chances, third and more realising there is nothing for me there. There is no ‘Home’. There is never going to be.

“ I will call you later”, I tell him and hang up the phone, hoping the next time, I would have definite answers.

I run away again, hoping for a better next time