Why don't some people feel comfortable
leaving the place where they were born?

By Sherazade Palma | 5 minutes read

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Why don't some people feel comfortable leaving the place where they were born?


I do believe leaving your safe harbor is the greatest adventure you can ever
undertake!


I have never regretted leaving the place where I was born, I do regret that I didn’t do it earlier. But maybe this was part of the path.


When I was 14 years old, I came to London for the first time. My heart was pumping
and my head was full of dreams. The city, with its typical English houses and beating roads, left in me a spot I wanted to come back to. I didn’t want to leave; I still remember my cheeks marked by tears like scars in my heart. The sorrow followed 7 years when then I completely moved here.


The road ahead was long. Life is like surfing, always waiting for the next wave.
For an ambitious person like me, the routine was not enough.
I did feel like in a cage but I didn’t know the one who kept the key.


I suppose it was myself, the same part of me holding there, dragging me down because I still did not have that enough experience, resources, opportunities to go… to leave everything behind and jump into a new life.


Whoever like me has taken this big step knows the difficulties you will find when you land in another country.


However, it is in that difficulty that lies the seed of growth and opportunities.
There were so many doors in front of me, my hand was shaking as I was afraid to open the wrong one.


I could not understand what people were telling me, I did not know how to find a job I did not even have a proper job before. What did the country I was born in ever give me? Where did all the opportunities go? Where had the thrill of living gone? What about the sceneries and the landscapes, the cities I had read about in my books?


I did not want these places being only pages… I wanted to go into those pages, explore and breathe the air of new countries.


I wanted to be kissed by the sun of the Caribbean, have fun in Ibiza, watch the bright colors of India, wear long dresses in the Emirates and wear the traditional makeup for El Dia de Los Muertos in Mexico. There was one thing ahead of me:

My dreams!

I wanted to realize one by one and the only way to do that was raising the anchor.
Once you start working in a new country you become part of a new culture.
Everything will have a huge impact on you.


You’ll start learning a new language, pick up a word every day and try to remember it.


You’ll try different cuisines and talk to people coming from far away corners of
the Earth.


Your mind will open up and start thinking in a whole different way.
You’ll consider as normal things that you never thought they could be.


Old people will disappear and their importance will fade. The people that surround you will become your new family.

 


Where the swans swim…


7 years have passed since I left that safe haven, there was no one moment I wanted to be back. I cherish every moment of my new life in London.


London was the best gift I have ever received. If there is a place I’ll always come back to, it’s right here.


When I was a child, I was often going on holidays with my family to Garda Lake. That place is magic. I remember waiting all year long for summer, eager to head to the Lake and feed the swans…

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Garda lake was a 800 km drive away from home, it was a long journey on the road to reach that beautiful lake and watch those swans swimming. Today, I leave my flat and walk for 10-15 minutes to be on the riverside. Swans are here too, swimming again, for me.


During springtime, behind the business district, flowers bloom; shades of pink and yellow make my life a splash of colors.
I would like to stay where swans swim again… I would like to be where flowers still bloom…


We never decide in what place we want to start our lives. Nobody asks us as toddlers in which country we might picture ourselves as an adult; which education to pick, which friends we want to have, which university we want to attend, which roads we want to drive or which street we want to cross.

 

There are several reasons why you should leave a place you are not happy at.
First of all, the people. A place is beautiful, a place is magic, fun, romantic if its
people are… if your dream is to surround yourself with different people, then leave and find those you are looking for.

 

Secondly, if you want to experience a different environment because the one you were assigned at birth does not suit you, then just leave… however don’t spend the rest of your life regretting how you didn’t do it for fear of failure or others’ judgment.


Failure brings with it the seed of success. It may be hard at the beginning, but once you get comfortable with it, you'll feel on top of the world.
That place will become yours, familiar in every corner and on every face. Streets will be like pages of a familiar book and your life now will become a second childhood.


Whoever leaves the place s/he was born at has the opportunity to live more lives, to breathe fresher air, to meet more people, to experience infinite emotions. Whoever moves somewhere else will always have 2 homes, the one s/he was born and that one s/he has chosen. S/he will always have 2 families, that one he knows since always and that one he has chosen.


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