A home away from home...

Anyone who is not living in the same city as they were born and raised will naturally identify with this thought or with "A lack of home away from home..."

I felt like I just experienced something like home for a brief moment in time yesterday...

I work for an Aerospace company in Seattle and I am working on something that has a sure deadline of June '06. Given the nature of my job, I decided to start looking for another and started the interview process last week. I happened to interview with 2 groups and got offers from both. One was closer to my house but extremely demanding and tasking work, with a group of engineers and the other is far away, but, requires working with Suppliers...I decided to take the one far away from my house...

As I called the hiring manager to decline the other offer, he reacted in an extremely emotional fashion.... questioning my decision...I was a little perplexed and did not know what to say...as this has never happened before...anyway after a little more thinking, I decided to send him and his team a note of regret and thank them for their time....

The response from him to that email just completely overwhelmed me....I am far away from India and I am a legal alien in this land...never once thought anyone cared enough to let me know that they worried about my decision and they wanted to protect me from the politics and uncertanity in this organization...That they really had my best career interest on their mind when they decided to offer the position to me...

I could have instantly felt a repulse running through my spine at the thought that someone would be so machiavellinistic enough to get me to commit to something that I dont really want to....but I did not. I felt a rush of emotion that felt familiar....the same rush I felt when my mom would ask me to take care when I am getting on to the school bus...the same emotion that I felt when my dad held the back of my cycle gently enough so I would not fall off when I first learnt to bike....I felt the same emotion that I thought was like being tucked into bed by my grandmom when I was at her house for summer vacation!

Life is strange, you meet people at different walks and you dismiss them so instantaneously...but it catches you unsuspectingly...with gentle kindness and it makes you really think and question your decision....and look back at your experience and notice the nuances about it...

Anyway, I just thought that I should write about this, so on days I feel terribly low and depressed about being so far away from home...I could think of all the kindness I have received here, that will keep me warm and cozy...

This is what I call "A home away from home...."