Between Here and Home
There’s a particular kind of weight that comes with living away from immigrant parents. It’s the weight of absence—the empty seat at the dinner table, the Tupperware stacked in the fridge after a visit, the missed birthdays that are never really just birthdays, but markers of time slipping away. It’s the weight of guilt, of freedom, of choice.
I live in New York City. My parents, who immigrated from India decades ago, are still in the house I grew up in. My sister, at 30, recently moved back home to California. And I find myself somewhere in between—between the life I’ve built here and the one they wish I hadn’t left.
The thing about being the child of immigrants is that we’re raised to leave, but never too far. Success is measured by independence, but that independence is meant to orbit home, not escape it. When I moved out, I carried all of that with me. I carried their sacrifices, their expectations, their worries about whether I was eating enough, sleeping enough, saving enough. And yet, I stayed. Because I love this city, because I love my space, because I wanted a life that was mine.
And then my sister moved back.
I don’t know exactly how to explain what that shift felt like, but it was something close to guilt. Not because she moved home, but because I didn’t. Because even though she moved back for herself, maybe they need someone now in a way they didn’t before. Because when she tells me about the small things—how my parents met our family friend’s newborn and talked about what it was like when we were that little, how my sister cooks a meal for the family every week, how the house feels different—it reminds me that I am missing moments I won’t get back.
But my parents are still very healthy. So do I wait until they’re not? Do I move back when their bodies slow down, when the house is no longer just quieter but still? The thought lingers in the back of my mind, an unanswered question I don’t know how to approach.
At the same time, I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything big in New York yet. I’m still single, I’ve been unhappy in my jobs, and I haven’t felt like I’ve made an impact here. Leaving now would feel like leaving unfinished work, like I haven’t justified my time away. How do I go home when I don’t even feel like I’ve built something worth coming back from?
And yet, I know I’m privileged in my guilt. I have an incredible relationship with my parents. I know that for many people, moving back home isn’t even an option—not because of logistics or careers, but because of pain, of fractured relationships, of wounds that haven’t healed. My guilt isn’t about running away; it’s about having the choice to stay away, despite how much love is still there.
The night my sister was flying home, my mom and I were on FaceTime together, both of us crying. And then she said something that broke me: that she wished she had been able to do more for me. That she and my dad worked so much when I was younger, and she wishes she had spent more time with me.
It shattered me because that’s not what I remember. I remember parents who, no matter how hard they worked, always showed up. Parents who were at every single one of my dance performances, every award ceremony, all my school functions. Parents who, even now, at 25, still make sure I am supported by them. And yet, she carries this weight of regret, as if she wasn’t already doing everything she could.
There’s no neat ending to this. No tidy resolution. Just the reality of being between here and home, of loving my parents from afar, of knowing that every choice carries both a cost and a comfort. Of hoping, always, that they understand why I stayed away, and that when I do return, it still feels like enough.
