07/07/2026
Who was braver? Was it you who folded your entire life into a suitcase and boarded a train to an unfamiliar city? Or was it your mother, who smiled while helping you pack, knowing that once you left, the house would never sound quite the same again?
No one tells you how difficult it is to pack a life. People tell you university life will change you drastically. But they rarely mention that it will also demand a part of yourself.
Every year, thousands of first-year students arrive in universities away from their home with oversized bags and undersized courage.
But then you realise that your mother is no longer calling you to eat. If you do not cook, hunger waits for you. If you do not wash your clothes, they stay dirty. Sometimes you skip meals because assignments seem more urgent than hunger, or because money is running low. Is it loneliness or freedom? Perhaps it is a little of both.
Before leaving home, many people repeat the same warning: "Basa thk dure giye bigre jash na" (Don't go astray after going away from home).
I often want to ask them what "going astray" actually means. Is it learning how to stretch one meal into two? Washing clothes after midnight because that is the only free time you have? Calling home and pretending everything is fine when it clearly is not?
Growing up looks far less glamorous than people imagine. The strangest part is that you slowly stop belonging anywhere. In the new city, you are the newcomer. Back home, you become the visitor. Your mother cooks your favourite dishes just to make you feel at home, but somehow they only remind you how much has changed.
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(Don't know why, but leaving away from home is not independence, it is challenge, a struggle, no one talks about. Like we have two different world, but in the end, it feels like we don’t belong from anywhere.💔)
May Allah give every one of us the strength to live the life, where we are staying away from home. And make it the best investment of our parents and our life. Ameen.🤲
