Between Dreams and Home — A Working Woman’s Quiet Guilt

The train was running at a fast speed, but she was lost in those last days she spent at home before boarding the train to Delhi.

And this has become a ritual for her now. When she boarded the train, she finally got time to reflect back on the time she spent with family and her one and only close friend. For her the feeling of home was always a complicated affair. She could never decipher her feelings about her home, because for her life was that. And over the time even though she realised home is where she feels calm and safe but still she can't ignore the fact that her family's home which is her home but she feels like a guest there.

For her, her whole life's motive is to find a place that she can call home by heart. She read somewhere that 'sometimes I am homesick for a home, which is not even there'. And for her these lines are so relatable.

Her thoughts are taking her back to every member of her family and she realizes reality is much different from the imagination she had in Childhood. She is a working person now, she earns well, she is independent as she wanted it to be. But in this process she has always felt a guilt inside of not doing justice to her family's Feelings.

Like this time her father asked her to stay two more days even though she was working 10-12 hours because of the project deadline spending most of the time in front of her laptop. And she wondered why he wanted her to stay when all she is doing is working and sleeping.

Her Grandparents had even more different scenarios, they wanted her to stay and she realized 2 weeks are not enough for them. She initially felt they were being unreasonable when her Nani said do your work from here, but stay or take a leave. Like she hasn't tried to buy as much time as possible, but because of the project deadline she couldn't. But now when she is thinking about that she is feeling bad and feels angry at them.

True they don't understand how the working world works because of their simple life back at her native place, and all they want is time with their grandKids. And are they wrong? Ofcourse not! That's what family is for!!

As a kid she always pictured herself as a person who will be there for everyone but there is a stark difference in childhood and reality. When they ask her when she will come back again, every time she has no answer, she just says she doesn't know. Because she will also get busy in her life once she is in Delhi.

But maybe slowly but finally she is letting that realisation sink in that she can't be there for them as they want because she chooses this life for herself. And that guilt of not being enough for your family and loved ones will always be there. And she is not the one, every person who is away from home working for their dreams feels the same.

The line, "We left home for Dreams, and now home seems like Dream," echoed in her mind. As her station approached, she gathered her belongings, pushing aside her thoughts. But she knew these feelings would linger, finding a home within her for some time to come.