How Moving Away Changes You

Tis' that time of the year Bangladeshi students who have decided to travel abroad for their college education are brimming with excitement, already dreaming about their new lives in a more "liberal" land. Some are also enthusiastic about living on their own for the first time for when you grow up with relatively strict Bengali parents, this newfound feeling of having complete control over your life seems almost too good to be true. No more curfew (at least, until your dorm locks their gates for the night), no one forcing you to attend those unbearably long family gatherings, not having to worry about getting yelled at for leaving your bedroom door closed...the list is endless.

Having grown up with a strict mother, I can relate to most of these. Which is why when I decided to study abroad on my own for the last two years of my high school career, I was actually a little nervous in the beginning. I kept thinking: would I be able to handle living on my own? Doing my own laundry? Doing daily chores without someone nagging all the time? Turned out, I was able to manage these relatively well, if not perfectly as per my mother's standards. From my experience, the difficult part about living on your own while studying abroad isn't actually the "living on your own" bit, it's when you try to adjust back to living with family when you return home. Suddenly, your family members' interference in your everyday life feels a lot more invasive than it had before. Your mother's regular jabs at your failure at being a well organised human being has a more emotional effect than it should. Conversely, your folks start getting annoyed at you for deciding things on your own all the time. It is then that you realise for the first time: living alone has grown on you. You are no longer a part of the symbiosis that sustains your family's daily life. While some members of society see it as a positive thing (being independent that is), others see it as a threat to our traditional family life. One thing's for sure, you don't come back as the same person you once were when you left. Now whether to see it as a good or a bad thing is entirely up to the individual.

I personally don't mind the way I have changed during these past two years. Living in a foreign country on my own has made me independent, open-minded, and more capable of holding my ground when sticking to what I believe in. In today's world, I believe that these qualities are important to grow as an individual. However, I also believe in the importance our society places on family life, for that is what makes us better social beings. We are an emotional nation: a nation of people who cry together when our national cricket team loses a match, a nation where parents end up selling entire acres of land to support their children's education. So, the answer is not one or the other. It's about finding a balance between the values you've developed during your time away and the values that you grew up with. And that balance is likely to be different for each individual – you just have to spend some time figuring it out on your own. No one said that it was going to be easy; it never is. But with the right kind of effort, you just might be able to find the middle ground that works best for you.

Nobonita is a college bound Bangladeshi Preppie (two words that you probably never thought you'd see beside each other) who believes that movies like The Wild Child overexaggerates boarding school life. She likes headbanging to musical scores and travelling when she has the time, money and friends for it. She also has an on again, off again book blog called Daydreaming Bookworm, where she writes freelance reviews for publishers and hosts the occasional giveaway.