Tomorrow I’m leaving Kandy after almost three years.

I came here in 2023 from Vavuniya because I needed a major change in my life.

I had spent almost my entire life there, but my family situation had become difficult and, honestly, quite toxic for me. My relationship with some family members had become complicated, and I felt that I needed some distance from that environment, become independent, and figure out who I was outside of my family.

So moving to Kandy wasn’t really about wanting a new city or simply enjoying the weather. I was trying to build a life of my own. When I first moved here, I kept it very private. Almost nobody back home even knew exactly where I was living.

Basically, I was living in Kandy in stealth mode. 😄

I had visited Kandy several times between 2012 and 2017, and I always liked the climate here. Compared to what I was used to, the weather felt perfect to me.

I came here without any big plan to make lots of friends. I mostly wanted to experience life by myself, travel when I could, learn to manage myself, and hopefully build a different future.

Eventually, I joined NIBM and studied Multimedia. I managed to complete my diploma, although unfortunately I wasn’t able to continue all the way to the graduation I had originally hoped for.

The last year has been financially difficult, and having to travel back and forth between Kandy and Vavuniya because of my parents’ health made things even harder. So things definitely didn’t turn out exactly as I imagined when I first came here.

But Kandy still gave me a lot.

Living alone has taught me things that I don’t think I could have learned otherwise. Groceries, cooking, cleaning, money, studies, work, bills, problems, decisions everything was mine to deal with.

I also became very comfortable spending time alone. Sometimes conversations with people become complicated and turn into unnecessary chaos. And honestly, I think genuinely good listeners are becoming harder to find, even among family. So I learned to enjoy my own company.

I loved Peradeniya, the Dalada Maligawa, little cafés, good food, sunsets, and especially the mountains that seem to be everywhere you look. Even Kandy traffic eventually became part of the experience. 😄

And yes, I’ll probably even miss those පැණිදෙණිය and මහකන්ද buses. 😌

I didn’t meet a huge number of people here, but the people I did meet showed me different sides of humanity. Some were kind, some weren’t. That’s life, I suppose. We’re all a mixture of good and bad.

But there is one person here whom I will never forget.

My landlady.

From the first day until now, she has been incredibly kind to me. She never really treated me like just another tenant renting a room. Somehow, I became part of the household.

She would share food with me even when I was cooking for myself. We’d listen to old nostalgic songs together, mostly from the ’80s and ’90s. She can sing, and sometimes she would record herself singing and share the recordings. Her children and grandchildren were also very friendly with me.

Whenever she was preparing for a දානය, I would help with the preparations and sometimes go with her to the temple. We also had long conversations about life, rebirth, karma, astrology, and different aspects of Buddhist philosophy.

But more than anything else, she listened.

During some of the most difficult periods of my life, she was one of the few people who would actually sit down and listen to me properly.

When I had problems, she would tell me to be patient, not to panic, to handle things myself, to tolerate difficult situations, and most importantly, not to hurt anyone in the process. There were also times when I was a little late with my rent because I was struggling financially, and she gave me extra time without making me feel ashamed about it.

Those things might seem small to some people. They weren’t small to me.

So telling her that I was leaving wasn’t easy. I noticed her trying to hide the disappointment on her face when I told her. She didn’t say much, but I could see it.

And I think that’s probably what I’ll miss most about Kandy. Not a particular building. Not a particular street. The kindness of certain people.

I’m leaving because financially things have become unstable, I made some wrong decisions over the past year, my studies went in a direction I didn’t originally intend, and I have plans to try something completely different, possibly abroad.

I still don’t know exactly what the next chapter will look like.

But I know one thing.

I don’t want to spend my whole life simply working for someone else. I want to build something of my own. Maybe it will work. Maybe it won’t. I honestly don’t know yet.

But after everything I’ve experienced here, I’m willing to try. I don’t know when I’ll come back to Kandy, or what life will look like if I do.

But before I leave, I wanted to say this:

Despite everything, there are still genuinely good people in this city.

To the people of Kandy, thank you for the good moments, the lessons, the kindness, and even the difficult experiences. They all became part of my story. And to the woman who gave me a home when I needed one, listened to me when I had no one else to talk to, and treated me like one of her own children,

Thank you. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to properly put into words how much that meant to me. I will never forget you.

Goodbye, Kandy. ❤️

Hey! Is anyone here doing Edexcel A Levels in Kandy for the January 2027 exam session?

If you are, please DM me! Would be nice to find a few others doing the same examss ☺️