This year I’ve been reading a lot of books on immigration. Displacement and immigration has always fascinated me ever since I moved halfway across the world exactly 3 years ago. The fact that people are endlessly moving and finding new opportunities for a better life, or escaping life threatening situations, there are many reasons that make moving to a different country compelling. Leaving family and friends behind is never easy, but made easier when the promise of the new land is tempting. It rarely turns out the way you imagine though.
This book was so beautiful, it depicts very well how it feels to move and start life all over again, when you don’t want to, but it becomes a necessity. It’s one thing to move as an expatriate, but completely different when you’re an exile. And the hardships exiles face in starting over a new life, leaving a past behind, there’s no guarantee you’ll be back. The melancholy of wishing you could go back and resume the previous life, when in reality that life has disappeared into the abyss. The past now becomes fragments of memories and only exists as long as you do.
Life is all about new beginnings. And despite wanting to settle down in the later years of age, this book shows that sometimes that is not an option. Life throws a lot of unexpected circumstances to us, and while many are stoic and resilient, many others have their spirits broken and hopes crushed. It is a lesson I take to heart, because i have poor resilience in life. And while i wish to be stronger, i will never be as strong as the exiles. And that makes me feel ashamed for being ungrateful for the many blessings Allah has given me.
But we move on and the only way is forward now. Like the million exiles created from wars, there’s just as many displaced/moving people, including myself. Life is about creating purpose and meaning through our actions, and more often that requires taking the first step into an unknown future. Life is never not exciting for the person uprooting their lives and starting over. One step at a time and usually things get better with time and a bit of luck.
“Going around in a sulk will get you nowhere. Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional”
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