Today is an emotional day. Today I tell my students that I am leaving. I always knew I wouldn’t stay here forever, but actually leaving. I had not thought that part through.

When I was offered a new and exciting job back in the UK, nearer family and friends, I had to say yes. One conversation, one email, one decision, and the chapter that shaped me for three years suddenly had an ending. This is my third year in India. And I guess they say, when the time comes, it just comes.

But how do you actually leave a life you built? Not just a job, a life. Friends. Students. Staff. Dust and sunshine. Morning coffee with Koshelia. The sound of scooters. Mango season. Power cuts. Shared meals. Laughter. A version of myself that only existed here.

Standing in front of my class explaining I was going, I could feel the truth land in my body before my mind processed it. I am leaving. This is real.

How That Move Shaped My Architecture Career

At the time, I was working in architectural education, helping to teach and shape young designers at a formative stage in their lives. That experience alone was a lesson in responsibility, clarity, and resilience - the kind of life lesson you don’t learn in an office or in architecture school.

Teaching abroad taught me more about architecture than drawing or software ever could: cultural sensitivity, patience, and creativity under constraint. Those years changed how I teach, how I design, and how I hold pressure.

Koshelia standing in the kitchen in India wearing a blue saree, a woman who cared for us during my time living and teaching there

Returning to the UK Was a Second Shock

A few months later, I am back in the UK - cold, grey, and quiet. Everything works 24/7 now, from electricity, water, buses, and yet something else does not work at all: my ability to fit neatly back into this version of normal. It is jarring how quickly a life can end while another begins.

I find myself thinking about Koshelia, our cleaning lady, cook, surrogate auntie, sari stylist, and silent conversational partner over morning coffee. She didn’t speak English, and yet we spoke every day. She negotiated like a lawyer, mothered like a general, and held a strength I still admire.

People talk about “chapters” like they close cleanly. They don’t. They linger in the shape of people like her.

The Real Lesson: You Can Survive the Unknown

What India taught me is this:

Sometimes life pulls you into the unknown, ready or not, and you survive it. You adapt. You feel. You grieve. You continue.
Leaving did not mean the chapter was wrong - it had done its work. And the courage wasn’t in going to India, it was in leaving when it was time, even though my heart hadn’t caught up.

Why This Chapter Still Matters to My Work Today

This is why I care so deeply about helping others through seasons of change in design school, in practice, in career pivots, or in life chapters that demand courage. Not because I studied transition in theory, but because I have lived inside it. More than once.

You can walk away from something you love, and still trust that you will build again.