“for people bought and sold houses the way they bought and sold stocks, and every year someone was moving out and someone was moving in, and now all these doors from who knows where were opening.”
We are constantly told to follow our dreams and become exactly who we want to be. As I graduate high school, I am expected to live up to this statement by choosing exactly the major, college, internship, and job I desire. I could be a doctor or an artist, go to school in Ashland or study abroad in Spain. The possibilities are truly endless. I could spend my whole life chasing precisely who I want to be, trying to relive each moment over and over, pinpointing exactly what decisions give the best outcomes.
In a world full of endless possibilities, doors that can take them across the world in an instant, Saeed and Nadia in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West find themselves trying to flee their own country teeming with tension and conflict in hopes of a better life together. Despite their hopes, the pair travels to multiple places only finding that they too are full of unrest. What the couple desires and the reality of what they find destroys their relationship, each new door drives them further apart until they entirely separate. In separation, Saeed and Nadia realize the life they were searching for was already found even before they leave their home country and step through the door.
We will never be content with where we are. We may settle for our childhood hometown, for the biggest house we can afford, or for the best available partner, but deep down we will always try to escape, always chasing something more, never knowing whether or not the present moment is the best it will get.
“it seemed to her that she too had migrated, that everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same houses our whole lives, because we can’t help it. We are all migrants through time.”
Lydia's Blog 