I recorded a voice note for my sister last night. Nine minutes long. Then I deleted it.
I was sitting on my friend's fire escape in Astoria, the one that overlooks nothing special, just the back of another building and a sliver of the N train rumbling past. We'd made too much food. Someone had brought dhokla from that place on Steinway and I ate four pieces standing at the counter like a raccoon.
And then everyone left and I was alone with the leftovers and the city and the sudden, sharp ache of missing home.
Homesickness is strange in NYC. It doesn't come when you expect it. It doesn't come on Diwali or on my birthday. It comes on a random Sunday when the dhokla tastes almost exactly like my nani's but not quite, and the not-quite is what undoes you.
So I started the voice note. Hi Di, I said. And then I just talked. About the cold morning. About how the mustard seeds I bought here don't pop the same way. About how I saw a woman on the Q wearing a saree under her puffer coat and I almost cried right there between stations.
I told her I'm doing well, because I am. I told her the job is good, because it is. And then somewhere around minute six my voice did the thing. The wobble.
That's when I stopped. Because homesickness feels different when you say it out loud. Naming it makes it real, and I wasn't ready to make my sister carry it across an ocean and a twelve-and-a-half hour time difference.
So I deleted it. And I sent her a photo of the dhokla instead with the caption almost as good as nani's. She replied within a minute. Come home for Diwali, pagli.
Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. But sitting on that Astoria fire escape, I understood something. Homesickness isn't a sign you chose wrong. It's just proof you loved somewhere first.
The city can be home and the ache can be real. Both things fit.
Some voice notes are just for you.
Love,