Leaving Malaysia after 18 years feels a lot like ending a long-term relationship. It’s like being with someone for nearly two decades, someone you’ve invested your heart and time into, hoping for commitment—but knowing deep down, they’ll never give you what you need.

They might tell you that if you stay, they’ll decide in 5 or 10 years, but you know their history. They’ve never committed to anyone who looks like you, and they probably never will. And yet, you stay, holding out hope for something that, in your gut, you know isn’t going to happen.

Perhaps you’ve somehow managed to convince yourself that you’re not like the other guys?

The depth of pain after a breakup isn’t necessarily tied to how long you were together with someone. It’s tied to the future that will never be. The time spent, no matter how long, is already gone.

What stings is the realisation that all those years were spent building toward an imagined future that will never exist. An entire timeline, severed from reality.

When a relationship like that ends, you often find the person you’re most upset with is yourself. Because Malaysia was always — and has always been — Malaysia. It never lied to me. I just had a misplaced hope that things might change.

But the only thing that changed was me. And now I’m here beating myself up for spending all those years working on a future that was never possible, when I could have been building towards something more viable elsewhere.

What I’ve always known — and what’s worth remembering now — is this: Don’t stay with someone just for their potential if their present reality isn’t enough.

Potential is great, but if they’re not where you need them to be today—and you’re unhappy with that—then it’s time to move on.

But of course I’m going to miss Malaysia.

I’m going to miss my friends whose warmth and depth of affection was all-encompassing in those last few days before I left. I’m going to miss Bukit Gasing and our Sunday hikes. I’m going to miss Three Guys. I’m going to miss bundle shopping and cycling along the river of life. I’m going to miss the river. I’m going to miss swimming and roti canai. I’m going to miss walking up that hill from Universiti LRT to Pantai Panorama.

And I’ll for sure miss the feeling of belonging and being a part of a society and a culture I know so well, even if it’s always been on the fringes.

In fact, I already do.

But for now, I need to start working on another branch — another future that may or may not be — and I hope that some of what I’ve learned over there will help me here as I start this new chapter.