It's All in Your Head

It was when I wished I had taken up my mother's offer that I became anxious. She wanted to call one of her friends in India to take us to a grocery store that was just down the street. I refused, in part because it felt patronizing ("you've traveled without us so many times, but let me send someone to hold your hand and walk you to the end of the street") and because it felt ridiculous to ask someone to come all the way to our hotel to, you know, walk us down the street.

We walked around for thirty minutes, but still couldn't find it. So we just went back to the hotel and went to bed.

And now I'm lying on a hard mattress under numbingly cold air, wrapping a blanket around my body as many times as I can.

Sometime in March, I had warned Kendon and Bianca to take what I say with a grain of salt, because my experience growing up in Hyderabad was atypical. And I didn't mean it in a "we all have unique perspectives so you may have different opinions than me" kind of way. My experiences fostered an ignorance which is now making itself increasingly apparent. Hyderabad is intimidating me. It's nothing like London or Rome or other big cities where I still felt like I had a lot of control over my environment. I feel like I'm caught in an ocean current.

I roll onto my right, facing Bianca's sleeping silhouette. A lock of hair falls forward, resting on my nose. I leave it there, refusing to take my hands out of the blanket burrito.

There's a certain kind of sadness that materializes when you realize that, out of all the places you've been to in the world, the one that takes you most out of your comfort zone is the city in which you were born.

And it's not that I'm helpless here. People are calling in to check up on me every day and I have a list of phone numbers of people who want to help me while I'm here. I know I can call them at any moment. But it's not about that.

I want to be able to sustain myself here. I want to be able to visit without having to know people or having them arrange things for me. This is just a city. Just a conglomerate of earth and people. It can't be that difficult.

Everything is matter. It's just atoms. No big deal.

Exhaustion overpowers the chill, and I finally close my eyes.