Pained-to-go, but can't-bear-to-stay...

Nothing unique about that.

I've been reading Sugata Bose's A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire. It's fascinating, showing yet again that there's nothing at all new about regionalization. But this quotation from the diary of Rabindranath Tagore (24 September 1924) especially caught my eye:

"It is 8 o'clock in the morning. There are dark clouds in the sky, the horizon is dim with pouring rain, and the moist wind like a peevish child refuses to be pacified. The unruly sea is sweeping across the concrete wharf of the harbour with its roar... Such a stormy weather at the time of departure makes one depressed... And yet I know, once we sail away from land, the tie that holds me back will dissolve of itself. The young traveller will come out on the royal path. This young man had once sung, 'Restless am I, I am wistful for the far beyond.'"

This time is not pleasant. It's our equivalent of "stormy weather at the time of departure". There's disorder, parting, uncertainty.

But it's a big world out there. And the "far beyond" is always calling...