There’s a lack of conviction in my decisions that makes me wilt under scrutiny. Everything lines up when I only have to deal with myself; all reasons valid, all excuses justifiable.

I had the kind of uncomfortable and heavy nap that comes from a stressful day. My brain whirred and stalled and whirred and stalled. Whizz fizz click. Whizz fizz click. Finally my body laid me under and shut the whole system down. I had had plans, in the middling grey of an unremarkable workday, to look at my things and sort them into piles. To reckon with my possessions and start burning them away, the shell I had built in my time here. But as I entered my room, basket of clean laundry under one arm, I felt heavy and thick with the permanence of objects, and how many things one can accumulate when one isn’t busy thinking of leaving.

My mind recalls the amount of times I have ever said “I don’t want to talk about it.” The outright nerve of such a declaration. Who was I to decide anything like that? Who was I to declare invisibility? I shifted and fussed under the warm, bright glare of constant surveillance and interrogation. Best interests at heart.

Permanent residency in Australia isn’t going to happen, not this year or next. I do not fulfil the important criteria, and I am not willing to throw money after what is, by all accounts, a gentle but firm rejection. My (migration-unsuitable) job, I’ve been told, might be given to somebody else next year, made bigger, made to involve skills I do not have. That’s fine. I didn’t take it personally, although I wish it had all become a little more clear a little bit earlier in that slightly uneasy conversation. That felt like a sign. It felt like a way out from a decision I wasn’t all too sure about making.

I try and think of Europe, however long I can have it. I try and think of coming back to Malaysia, I try and arrange myself inside so that there will be no space for the heavy stones I feel about this home of mine. I try and think of plans, and temporariness, and being happy. I try and be sure. I try not to think of money, and the clock. It feels like I am letting down so many people, although I could not tell you who, although that is how I feel most days. Oh the pains of being your own person, of living in your own skin, of speaking in your own voice, and declaring yourself.

I am, I am, I am*.

Leaving or staying? I would like to think there are more than two options, or an agreeable mixture of both. I am moving. I will keep in touch. I am hopeful. I want you to be happy for me. I am scared. I will try and do this. I will try and come back to visit. I will try to be happy where I am. I will try to remember. I will try not to forget. I am trying. I will keep trying.

* It wasn’t until exactly a month after I first wrote and posted these words that I realized it was, word for word, a quote from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. (Some versions say ‘brag’, others say ‘bray’)