“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked […]
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant loosing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet”.
— Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Should I stay or should I go?
Not the Clash song, but definitely the question I’ve asked myself more than any other over the past six years.
This month marks two years since I moved to London. I know for some people, “London” sparks daydreams of cozy rom-com nostalgia with Big Ben in the background — Notting Hill, Love Actually… (both bangers, if you ask me). The reality is modern London literally punches you in the gut, as a little welcome gift. With its ups and downs, my body has been CRAVING to leave this city for about a year now.
And here’s the thing: I love my friends. I love my job. I have a dream home. My barista knows my order, I go to the best cinema of all time every week, and I even get discounts at my favourite vintage shop because I’m friends with the owner. By all accounts, you’d say I’m a true Londoner now.
So what the hell is wrong with me? Why do I want to leave so badly?
Of course it’s neither my friends, my job or my home here making me want to leave. I recall feeling this way a couple of years ago, when I decided to move out of my hometown. This itch had been growing on me slowly over two years. A voice whispering “leave!!! travel!!! start again!!!” in my ear day and night. I would go for endless walks in nature to appreciate the present moment, knowing my life was about to change soon.
Back then, I also loved my friends and family. Madrid was my home. I was and will always be a madrileña at heart. Yet I still left.
It’s taken me more than four years to even imagine going back again at some point. My partner and I have been discussing the whole “where to next” for a while. Just like me, he’s a culo inquieto1 — maybe even more than I am. Three years ago, we were both leaving Scotland, and I remember being so ready for it. I felt in my heart that the next stop was London, even though Scotland had also become home after a year. (And look, I don’t take the word home lightly. I mean HOME HOME).
So yeah, I could pin this recurring urge on the big city — the stress, the endless commutes, the expense of it all. I could blame it on the grey skies and the constant noise. But deep down I know it’s not London. It’s me.
And so those voices are back — for the third time since I took charge of my own life: “leave!! travel!! start again!!”.
In most of my nightmares, I’m running — always running. I’m being chased and in desperate need to get away and never be found. Sometimes I run on foot, sometimes by car, boat, spaceship, even a hoverbike. Sometimes I dive, sometimes I fly. Always away, always as far as possible. What am I running away from?
“Since I came to London you’ve always been traveling. You’re always going back to France and Spain, you’re always on the move,” a friend told me recently. I hadn’t realized how true this was until I heard it from someone else.
I seem to have this strong longing in the depths of my psyche for novelty, solitude and leaving it all behind. So much life to be lived, so many places to be at, yet such little time for it all. So many options yet not enough hands to reach them.
But I’m not a cat. I don’t have nine lives to play around with. My fig tree is just like everyone else’s: as I pick a fig and savour it, some other unchosen figs will fall and rot in the ground. As humans, we face this existential conundrum: within a pool of seemingly unlimited options, we have to choose. And every time we choose something, we irrevocably miss out on something else.
I don’t regret moving abroad — though it is certainly much less glamorous than it seemed while looking through the window of my teenage room. I grew up travelling with my parents before I even had a mouthful of teeth. My love for life, for the planet, for other cultures has been brewing ever since. I was always destined to choose this fig. I’ve grown, I’ve learnt, I’ve become a better version of myself I wouldn’t have been able to become by staying.
But I’ve also missed home more than ever these past few months. I want my dog. I want my best friend to pick me up and drive us to the mountains. I want to walk the streets of Madrid, eat churros, sit at a terrace. And yet, I come back from Malaysia and feel comfort in my London bus route, my local vintage store, my fellow Londoners.
Maybe I’ve been approaching the question the wrong way all along. Maybe should I stay or should I go? has never really been about physical places at all. In my dreams I’m always running, but maybe I’m not only running away — maybe I’m also running toward the next version of myself. The one I’m divinely guided to when I listen to my intuition.
Some people ignore this inner voice. They follow the path that’s been written for them — easier, perhaps, because it’s clear and handed down by others. But when you step aside, when you refuse external expectations and decide to find out for yourself, the path blurs. Suddenly there are choices in front of you you never expected. That uncertainty takes courage and integrity — and it is something to be proud of.
To live is to lose as much as it is to gain. The point isn’t to taste every fig, but to choose the ones you’ll savour intentionally. To choose with authenticity. Only then can you live a life that is truly yours. Only then can you lie on your deathbed someday with no regrets.
Maybe home isn’t a single destination, a place I’ll one day settle in, but a mosaic I’ve been building all along with tiles from the places and people I’ve loved. Leaving doesn’t take home away from me — it multiplies it. Home has never been something to find, but something that finds me. Something I build, piece by piece, wherever I land.
And if that’s true, then maybe it doesn’t really matter so much whether I stay or leave. Because whichever path I take will be layered into the person I am becoming. To stay is to root deeper. To leave is to plant new seeds. Either way, the mosaic grows, and so do I.
“What road do I take?”
“Well, where are you going?”
“I don’t know”
“Then it doesn’t matter. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there”
Culo inquieto: Spanish colloquialism for a person with “itchy feet”, someone who can’t stand still and needs to be on the move constantly. Definition by @me
I loved this piece so much! As a girlie who always feels this sense of urgency to travel and move and start over again and again, it felt so refreshing to read about someone who GETS IT. There is so much life to live and so much to see and experience…it would be a shame to miss it. At the same time, it’s so important to be present and mindful because what’s the point if we’re not mentally and emotionally “there” to actually live in our manifested desires?
I feel like I read this at exactly the right time. Gorgeously delivered! 🫶