Meandering...

I went to Brussels this morning. We took the number 71 to Avenue de Adolphe Buyl. ( I wonder what he did to deserve the honour) It was a long ride and I got to see a lot of the city that I hadn't had an oppurtunity to before. First of all, I must say, I hate being in a new place if it's for any other reason except tourism ( for lack of a better word) . Besides, I'm afraid I am much too spoiled to find public transport in a big, crowded city, enjoyable - In fact, it really gets my goat.

In Brussels today, I was clearly out of my comfort zone and I felt like a fish out of water - unsure and struggling. Brussels is quite a bustling city, and with a million inhabitants it's bordering on overpopulated (for it's areal size) . Now you may think that sounds higly pretentious and even hypocritical coming from me, having been brought up in a city of 8 million people. But we have relativity to consider, have we not?

My frame of reference for comparison is my peaceful little university town of a 60,000 people - half of whom, mercifully, make their exit every weekend to their own homes around the country. I realise how much I have grown to love living in a small town - where you know where everything is , where you can recognize the bus drivers, where they can recognize you, you know how the 'system' works , people smile or atleast nod at you, where traffic stops for pedestrians and people are polite and patient.

As I struggled to explain to the bus driver where I need to go, struggled with the switch of language, struggled with a map, I realised how much I had settled down into my little niche since I first landed, how six months ago, Leuven and Brussels were all the same to me.. Alien! Now, In all truth, I can say that there are two places I feel comfortable in - home and Heverlee.

A funny thing, the mind. Mine ached to soar and explore. Always straining against the leash of circumstance and lack-of-opportunity, my curiosity always was my most heightened instinct. And then I got what I wanted. I left home. I came to Belgium. And the drastic nature of the change tossed everything upside down. I found myself constantly seeking the familiar and sticking to what I knew and understood. It puzzled a close friend of mine for a long time, he didn't seem to understand how it was that a girl so seemingly open in her views suddenly clammed up. I didn't expect it myself. If someone had suggested that I'd be so terrified of the things that I find I am, I would have pooh-poohed it!

I guess in the beginning, it was pretty simple. Everything was too strange. I was completely unaccustomed to anything except the familiar. I suppose now, I'm a little better. But in the last six months, the same fear that held me back also made me begin to really appreciate the small town life. It's made me see what I missed out on being brought up in Madras.

I wonder every now and then , if it's a case of simply, the grass being greener on the other side. You want stability when you have adventure and vice versa. I am reconciling myself to the fact that I'm not who I want to be and I can't change myself into being an uber-adventurous spirit just because I choose that that is the image of myself I like. This is what I mean, when I say that I'm discovering myself bit by bit with every little incident - such is the power of being thrust straight into the deep end - Ofcourse, it's a good thing I figured out how to swim soon enough!

Thanks to a certain someone for moral support on that :)