When Home is not Home

When I left Jamaica two years ago, I was sure I would never return to live. I giggled nervously as I sat in the plane in Montego Bay, excited about the new world that awaited me in Canada. Weirdly enough, my love for Jamaica grew while I was away, and instead of constantly trying to run from the labyrinthine complexity of Jamaica's social problems, I desired to work to find solutions to them.

For over a year, the horrid reports of social dysfunction, which graced the pages of the Gleaner, haunted my every thought. I threw tantrums; I cried; I complained; I wrote. One wonders why, when the very society I started to care deeply for made me an outcast in my youth- I hated myself growing up, and constantly wished myself dead. I have come to a point now when I must acknowledge my obligations to my family; but I cannot continue to live like this--- constantly aching for solutions that are not forthcoming. Even if they were, there is not much that I could do to actually implement them.

I always asked of others, "if we don't go home, who will?" But I now understand why people stay away. I must now allow my individual aspirations to be stymied by fantastical visions of what Jamaica is to be. Frankly, I am tired of waking up each morning with the weight of a nation on my conscience. This of course is a symptom of my own weaknesses. Javed, WAKE UP!!! I finally made up my mind, I will not live in Jamaica anytime in the near future. Hopefully now I can set my sights on other, more attainable ambitions.

I hasten to remind myself of the reasons I desired to leave my island home in the first place. They weren't petty then and certainly aren't today.