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And as you get older, you start living differently. Your life begins to move in a reverse mode. You spend your Sundays in bed, wrapped in blankets, watching foreign cinema that you have never watched before instead of partying with your friends. You take out the trash every day, you change your sheets every three days. You don't always have to be the first person in line. Traffic doesn't bother you. You put your favourite songs in your car and take the long route home. It feels a little like your own personal concert. You don't need another person to go to the movies with you. You order for one in a cafe and sit beside the glass window watching the roads, people, the way winds blow, and the branches of trees. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing that you have finally learned to live all by yourself. You miss winter nights, but the ones from twenty two years ago in your hometown where your father and you lit a bonfire outside your garden and sat for hours talking about stars and planets. You remember your uni friends, and sometimes it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, and sometimes it makes you laugh in the middle of a restaurant where you are at a family dinner. When they ask you about it, you say nothing, but you make a mental note of checking up on them online. You realise that you aren't afraid of heartbreaks and rejections anymore. It's all part of life anyway. You watch a lot of horror movies till 1 AM on Friday nights when you have nothing else to do. You experiment more with yourself. You wear all the clothes that you weren't so sure about. You pick green, lavender and blue check shirts and draw that nerdy cool guy looks instead of going for something plain. You save up for the trips that you dream to take. You chat with your family over Sunday lunches, you wear more colour than just dressing in boring monochrome. You buy a lot of gadgets and think about getting an iphone. You listen to a lot of artists, and you finally find the one that you can listen to at night. You learn the things that you wanted to learn as a kid—French lessons, keyboard, horse riding, and cooking. You take care of your body and your mental health, and you learn how to say no, even when you hesitate. You invest in funds and think of buying a house, and it doesn't feel like a grown-up thing anymore. It just feels right. Or maybe you invest that money in traveling around the world. You don't overthink or hyperventilate so often because you have accepted that life has always been uncertain and that is the only certain thing about it. You think of being with someone kind and nice instead of romanticising over sad love songs. You choose your mental peace over chaos. You do not worry about your social media followers; you like the silence of a Sunday morning. You take trips on your own; you pack your picnic baskets and read books the same way you did when you were little. You leave parties early, but come home and dance to some techno song while you make pasta and sit on your balcony. You love your body more, and you accept people for who they are. You learn to cut off friends who gossip behind your back; you learn to prioritise yourself over others. There's no more waiting for the apology letters from your parents, and you're finally fine with it. You learn that you can miss people, but if they don't make a conscious effort to get you back in their life, they won't earn a place in yours. And when you feel lonely, you don't run away from yourself and your feelings. You understand that only when you have acceptance, you will let people love you in the way they can, and you will love them, too, in the way you can. You know that there are things you cannot control, so you let them be and live anyway. You take more pictures of the skies and mountains, your friends, and yourself. When you find something extremely beautiful, you absorb it with your eyes first because you know that some things are better kept in your memories than your phone gallery. When your friends ask you about your love life, you aren't so bothered because you had made a lot of mistakes when you were young, and you had hurt yourself and ruined your heart for the ones who didn't deserve you. You smile and say that you are okay, and you mean it because all your life you have sought validations from others, but this is the first time in a long time when you have begun to see yourself as someone important, too. And all the love that you were searching for elsewhere, you finally start to look for it within. When you grow up, all you ever do is leave. You leave people, situations, and places. You often wonder where home is because you always feel like a fish out of water wherever you go. You make a home for yourself in the city. You decorate it with plants, posters of a treasured sci-fi movie franchise, and souvenirs that you got from the flea market. Sometimes, it gets awfully quiet; other times, it's filled with the voices of your new favourite people. When it gets too silent, you call your Mother 1200 miles away and ask her about her day. You like to listen to her sometimes, but when she asks about yours, you gabble and say you're okay and then bid goodbye. You don't want to trouble her with your issues. It never completely feels like home because you are always missing something—your school friends, the old town roads, your Grandma's pickles, your cousins, evening drives, the smell of your room, and your family. And when you return to your hometown, you miss the comfort of living in your own place, Sunday brunches, your new friends, going on random trips, meeting strangers, and the view from your balcony. The silence that used to bother you in your new home is something that you crave when you return. You realise that this will never be over, the way that you are feeling. Maybe, you will get used to it when you get older. But right now, you are in your 30s, married and life is already hard. And no matter how much you want to feel at home, you often end up missing things you're far away from. You think that maybe the romantics are right. Maybe, you will find home in some other person, a better half. But the truth is that you will find a piece of you in every place you have ever been, in every person you have ever loved. You trim your beard the same way that senior in your school did when you were 15 years old. And there's an album in the corner of your room that your brother suggested for you to listen to, and that's how you discovered your favourite rock band. You find your habits lingering in the way your brother arranges his books—separating hardcovers from paperbacks and organising them by colour. Nobody does that, you think. You realise that cool drinks after the football games in the morning, bourbon biscuits in the evenings and little flavours of vermicelli and bread jam aren't your recipe; it's the way your Mother used to serve for you when you were ten. You notice that your best friend still plays your road trip playlist when he drives, and you wash the clothes the same way your partner taught you. You share your habit of clicking pictures of flowers by the roads with your Dad, and like your brother, you always check traffic on maps before leaving. Even if you don't talk to them anymore, you will always have tenderness in your heart for people. You will realise that so much of them is you, and so much of you is them. You realise that's why you can never feel completely at home because a part of your heart is always wandering in some other memory, in a different place that you used to call home. Your love spreads endlessly, and you realise that this is what happens when you have the joy of experiencing so many different kinds of loves and friendships. As you grow into the married life, you learn that departing isn't merely about leaving; instead, it's about carrying a piece of others with you and leaving a part of yourself behind. It transforms you into a magnificent collage, a gem woven from the threads of all those you've loved, of all those you are ever going to love. And someday, that feeling will be home enough. When it's lonely time at home or sitting by the window while travelling on a train or a bus, your mind wanders around and starts reminiscing. There, my thoughts about myself build up like self-reflection notes in a diary entry. It starts speaking out. Most days of my life feel as if I could just disappear and no one would notice, like a midnight rain. And I'm not gonna lie, I prefer that for the most part. I've never been good with people, with expressing how I feel, and with letting anyone inside the walls I built around me. But there are these moments when I wish I created deeper connections with others. Moments when I long for conversations which feel like having a glimpse of someone else's soul, or sharing a piece of myself, even if it's something as simple as a favourite song. You see, most days of my life feel as if I could just disappear and no one would notice, and I prefer that for the most part. But there are also days when I wish someone thinks of me, too, and remembers the sound of my voice or the way I laugh. It's just a comforting thought, I guess, knowing that in this beautiful world full of busy people, I existed and somehow, I mattered.