empathy burnout

My feet struggle to remain grounded these days.

Bear with me. 

Before I left, at twenty five, I learned how to ride a bicycle. Yes, late in life. 

After I moved away, I rode it everywhere. The wheels rattled as they zipped through the cobbled streets, and the narrow bike-seat left rashes on my skin. I remember those small discomforts fondly now; they were new to me then, marks of a little life beginning to expand. In the evenings, I had taken to walking along the river. I would sit on the grass and watch clouds drift slowly across the sky. There, I could hear the quiet. I could breathe the air without damaging my lungs. It was the little things- like watching new-born ducklings play in ponds. Sometimes, I ran my hands through lavender bushes until the scent clung to my jacket for the rest of the night. And somewhere along the way, I had fallen in love in a foreign language. 

For these memories alone, I will always be grateful.

My mind was rarely cluttered in those days.

But, later, came the faster rhythm of working life in yet another country. Every day, I walked through the cool mist. It is things that seem mundane to most that I miss the most, now- taking the tram, being one such example. I loved watching droplets gather on leaves and fall quietly to the ground as I walked in the park. Each autumn, they turned amber and rust — drifting slowly to the ground. And then I would wait, patiently, for their return to colour in the spring. I lived through seasons. Real seasons — through the slow procession of autumn into winter, the hesitant unfolding of spring and then, the burst into summer. And with each passing one, parts of the person I had once been quietly slipped away.

And, next to my street, my walks often led me through a nearby cemetery. I would pause there, studying the elaborate tombstones — Florentine marble imported even for the dead. And this willow tree, strangely, looms somewhere inside. I was often late to work and, I never truly explained the real reason for my tardiness to anyone. It's bizarre: I would stop and gawk at how the willow's locks swayed with the morning calm. It calmed me down watching her — especially on days where I could barely bring myself to get out of bed and face the day. Willows are not endemic to my island. Watching her — appreciating her — was also a novelty to me. And, like me, it seemed that she did not belong there. 

Sometimes, the lives of the people I left behind feel strangely small. Not small in value — but small in horizon. It is the familiar insularity of an island: a world bound by sea, where hills slowly become mountains simply because nothing larger intrudes to put them into perspective. For my family and many of my friends, this is the only bubble they have ever known.

There are those who regard me with a quiet unease. I suspect I make them uncomfortable; I suspect they resent me for living the life they might have wanted. I will always be the one who left and returned — the expatriate who came back carrying three years of elsewhere on her shoulders. The one whose stories leave an unfamiliar taste on their tongues. They often sit, observe- are you sipping wine made from sour grapes? Wouldn't you prefer fresh ones?

I hear people complain often about the country (a national sport, it seems). About how suffocating it feels. Here, people are upset when it rains- the grey skies. My body had grown accustomed to weeks without seeing any hue of blue. When it does not rain, people complain about the drought. When the heat arrives, they complain about the sweat dripping down their foreheads. And, when the air cools, they complain about the humidity hurting their bones. They complain about how they dream of leaving. And sometimes, perhaps too bluntly, I ask them why they never did.

Someone recently answered that question. They told me — with a hint of condescension — that they simply had too many ties here. Family. Friends. Work. Roots that run too deep to pull from the soil.

And me?

I suppose my life must look as though it were for rent.

These thoughts visit me only occasionally, usually in the quiet moments when memory has too much room to wander. People are entitled to their justifications. The stories we tell ourselves often become the only way we can live comfortably with our choices. I took the risk of leaving. Whether those three years will prove to have been a reward or merely a detour is something time will decide.

What I do know is that those years are difficult to explain to the people who never left. Sometimes they attempt to translate my experiences into their own local frustrations. Sometimes they quietly decide that I have become snobbish.

I wish they would simply listen, instead.

There are certain things only other expatriates understand — the peculiar blend of exhilaration and loneliness that came with building a life somewhere foreign.

As time passes, I find myself speaking about those years less and less. My stories cannot be appreciated by those who remain stuck in their rut. Nowadays, I am grieving quietly. I was away long enough to see my island clearly again — to suddenly appreciate cycles that once felt ordinary. I learned to appreciate the beauty of its climate. They have never left long enough, or will never leave long enough, to learn the art of appreciation. 

There are also small things, that I miss now-

The rickety wooden staircase that creaked beneath my feet as I climbed toward my apartment. The cheap beer which bloated me so bad that I almost always had to unbotton my trousers. The quiet amusement of sitting on the tram and inventing stories about the strangers seated beside me. I miss the people who taught me how to live in the present instead of drowning in details. The friends who made foreign places feel like home. I miss sitting with them in a small bistro overlooking the old city resting in its valley, talking about nothing and everything, all at once, on days the spring turned evenings soft.

And as I write this, a tear trickles quietly down my cheek.

Will anyone ever know what it feels like to return home and discover that no one quite understands you, anymore? To feel emotionally displaced — untethered from both the place you left and the place you returned to? Stuck between the place that broke you and the home that keeps breaking you? 

Perhaps this is what emotional exhaustion feels like.

Over these last years I gave too much of myself — to friendships, to love, to departures, to goodbyes. There is very little left in reserve. My reservoir needs time to refill. 

The truth, when it arrives, is disarmingly simple: the world does not stop spinning for anyone. Life moves forward whether we are ready for it or not. I will not sit on my own grievances to suit another's convenience. 

So I am learning something new now.

I am learning to live in the moment again. 

And this time, I am choosing myself.