The place you left may understand your absence differently from the way you lived it.

Departures get interpreted by the people who stay. What you experienced as necessity, opportunity or escape may be told at home as ambition, rejection or drifting away, and both accounts are sincere. Neither side has access to the other’s version unless somebody says it out loud. Distance leaves room for stories to grow in two directions.

If you left, say plainly at some point what it was actually like, including the hard parts, since silence tends to be read as contentment. If somebody left you, ask what those first years were really like rather than assuming. The two accounts usually fit together better than either side expects.