By Corey Heller
This originally appeared in Multilingual Living Magazine.
As many of us know and have experienced, living in another country changes you forever. You will never be the same and will never see things the same way again. I mentioned this to a friend after having lived abroad for a year. She looked at me confused and responded, “Oh come on, don’t be so depressing!”
Yet, for those of us who have lived abroad, this is simply the way it is.
The first time I experienced what experts call “Reverse Culture Shock” was after returning home from a Year Abroad Program in Galway, Ireland. My home town, which before had given me a sense of comfort and belonging, upon returning seemed stifling and bereft of warmth. I moved about my days feeling that something was missing but I had no idea what it could be. I eventually came face to face with the starling reality that my home would never, ever again feel the same as it had before. I had sealed my fate the moment I had boarded that plane the year before.
I don’t think there is really any way to describe this feeling to those who haven’t experienced it themselves. It’s a little like free-falling. It feels as if we are floating aimlessly on restless waters. We feel distinctly ungrounded.
What, exactly, is it that causes us to feel this way? Why is it more pronounced when living in a different country than just living in a different city? Does the degree of difference between our home country and the target country determine the degree of change we will experience upon returning?
Many descriptions of Reverse Culture Shock describe it as part of a continuum whereby eventually we’ll feel at home again in our native country and the vestiges of the “shock” will slowly wear off.
Although it is true that those initial feelings of strangeness have subsided, I still feel that something will never be the same even now, so many years later. What I constantly contend with now is a continual pull to go back; a pull to go back anywhere as long as it isn’t here. Yet when I am back there, I feel the pull to return here, the place I call home. It is as if I am living in a kind of suspended reality, never really here and never really there; restless.
The joy of having spent time in another country is that you slowly become a part of it and bit-by-bit one of its people. Our attention to detail is heightened and we make a concerted effort to understand and fit in until we become one with our new location. What I have seen and felt and heard and smelled in each of the places I have lived has made me who I am, like a wine having picking up its surrounding elements.
I would never want the clocks to be turned back to the person I was before I set foot on that first airplane. Instead, what I want more than anything is to have my favorite elements from each country right here with me now. I want to have an Irish pub around the corner here in Seattle, full of laughter and music and incessant chatter. After all these years, I still crave the smell of burning peat in the air and delight when I hear an Irish lilt.
But I also want to have the sights and smells and family and friends from Germany and Italy and France. I want to experience Tasmanian joviality and mainland Australian kindness on a daily basis. I want to somehow piece them all together into a patchwork quilt of sorts; to wear it day in and day out to bring me a kind of multicultural comfort of my own making.
Ultimately what I have lost in hometown comfort, I have gained in international familiarity. Whereas once boarding an airplane was an amazing feat and arriving in another country 10 hours later unthinkable, I now feel a safe sense of deja-vu when we are snuggled down into our seats for our long flight. I have a pretty good idea of the sequence of events whereby we will get from here to there and I cherish this opportunity to head to my “other home” of Germany for an extended visit. And after being there for a while, I can’t wait to snuggle back into my bed in my home in Seattle.
Thus, the final question I ask myself is no longer whether I will ever have that complete sense of home again, that sense of knowing I belong in one place above all others without doubt. I now ask myself how I can feel at home where I am at this very moment, in this place, with these experiences; each moment finding my way back home.
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{ 58 comments… read them below or add one }
So true, Corey. Sometimes it is a struggle to be present in your current situation and celebrate the beauty of where you are, rather than long for what you have left behind.
After 5 years in Spain I can’t wait for my visits “home” to Canada, but at the same time always feel slightly cheated when I arrive. It is never as wonderful as I sometimes imagine when I am having a tough day in Spain.
Now, home for me is wherever I am with my husband and son, in our crazy little culture that we have blended up ourselves.
http://notsospanish.wordpress.com/
What a good point you make – that home IS with our spouse and child, wherever that is. I can definitely relate to that! Thank you for your reminder!
Hi Corey,
I can completely relate to your feelings as I have undergone the same myself and reverse cultural shock makes you actually think that it can never be like before as the experiences make us grow rich and the horizons broaden. In fact there are so many people across the globe who are leading this kind of nomadic life and infact get so used to it that they would want to shift. I can also relate to moving to another country/place except original country of stay/origin because the things there never changed but you did.
Nice to be able to walk side by side with people who can relate to story like this. Thanks for sharing it.
Be Well
Coach Nupur
I agree completely! Being able to connect with one another in this way is so important. The worst is feeling as if we are different, have done something wrong along the way, should have stayed in our home town and never gone anywhere because now we are so different and feel alone. Then when we hook up with others we realize how connected we all really are!
Funny how no matter where we’re from, I think we all feel pretty much this way….I’ll never forget that first summer I spent in Spain as an exchange student 23 years ago…an experience that changed the course of my life. I ended up in Italy speaking Italian, but Spanish was my first love…Thanks for the lovely article that brought back so many memories!
How wonderful to have both Italian and Spanish! And you are more than welcome for helping to bring back memories – writing it brought back wonderful bittersweet memories for me too. In fact, I wanted to jump on a plane and go back to Ireland and see how much it has changed from 1991.
This is so true. I noticed that it took me about 2-3 years to get used to my new country, the USA. I spent a lot of complaining about those “crazy Americans” with other German expats. Then somewhere between 3 and 5 years you reach a “point of no return”, where you feel more at home in the host country than the home country. Last year we went back to Germany for a 3 months sabbatical (after 8 years in the US). I noticed that I did the same complaining as in my first years in the US, just this time about the “crazy Germans”. It would probably take me a few years again to get feel at home in Germany. Unfortuantely, we can’t create the perfect world somehwere in mid-atlantic! Now, I enjoy spending time with my fellow German (or other European) expats who are in the same situation and can relate. And I try to bring as much of the positive aspects of Germany here as I can to create my own “perfect world”. The sad thing about going away and coming back is that the people you return to can’t really relate and it sometimes feels like your experience abroad is not valid or hasn’t happened.
Thank you for your comments, Barbara! It can feel so lonely when we aren’t around people who really “get” what we have experienced. But when we find them, it is such a relief, isn’t it? There is still a bit of sadness inside me that I will always feel torn one way or the other. But ultimately, I think it is a small price to pay for my wonderful family!
“I now ask myself how I can feel at home where I am at this very moment, in this place, with these experiences; each moment finding my way back home.” Exactly!
You are so right, Jim! This is really what we should all be aiming toward no matter where we live and what we have experienced! Even those who have never traveled can feel out of place at home as well. Perhaps it is feeling strange in our skin that needs to be worked on. Thank you for sharing this reminder!
They say home is where the heart is, and while it sounds very cliche, I do have to agree. I’ve lived in Wisconsin, Germany, Wisconsin, Switzerland, New Jersey and Switzerland. Where is home? Switzerland has become home since coming to live here the first time. Wisconsin has the distinction of being “home-home,” the place my roots are. Reverse culture shock came only after my year abroad in Germany. Any relocation since has just been an adaptation, because of the “been there, done that” experience. It will never be the same, because we are never the same people we were when we lived there before. We are never the same people we were five minutes ago. That’s the beauty of it: We’re growing and learning as individuals. (At least I hope we are!)
Wonderfully said, Maureen! We are always growing, aren’t we? We are never the same people that we were a few minutes before – each new experience, thought, action changes us just that little bit more. I’ve found too that how I perceive the world around me is (1) in my control, and (2) doesn’t often match what others perceive. Knowing that gives me both a sense of power over my life and a relief that I am not in control of how others interpret what I say and do.
I love having more than one home! I love it that Germany and the US are places where I can belong fully and completely, having gotten to know them in such personal ways. Ireland to some degree but I never felt that I truly lived there. I always felt like a visitor.
Thank you for taking the time to share this!
This post rings so true for me. I only spent 3 months in Germany, but it took me a while to get used to being back home (USA), and to this day, I still miss things and long for some of those same experiences. I am eager to set up another long term stay to give my family the same experiences.
Cynthia´s last [type] ..Video- El drama del desempleo
I totally know what you mean, Cynthia! I dream of living somewhere else from the US all the time. It is kind of like thinking about what kind of dessert I’d love to have after dinner (a smooth piece of chocolate… a chocolate sundae… a bowl of fresh fruit) each has its own sensations in my thoughts. I have to be careful, though, since it can make me feel depressed if I am not careful. I have to constantly remind myself that what I have right here, right now IS so very wonderful! It is the best for right now. (But I am already getting excited for our visit to Germany in the Fall – LOL!)
Hi everyone!
I really like this blog, just the people were living abroad can understand the feelings and memories. I lived in the canary islands for two years,one year in Stuttgart (Germany) june last year i moved to London. i wrote a book about my two years in the canary islands in my mothertongue spanish, I come from Valencia. I will never be the same i think in diferent way than before i like to do diferent things and i understand much more people than i did before. I met hundreds and hundreds of people from over the world . I´m not sure about my future and i don´t think anyone can help me to choose the place to live “forever” i´m thinking to go back home next year and find a good job but i am scared to be there the rest of my live. I had summer all the year in canary islands, i was 7 months cold -15 º in Stuttgart and now i´m enjoying the spring-summer after a cold and rainy winter in London. I started to travel because i was ill for a month and i maked the decision to move to another place to find new experiences and motivations. i have thousands of pictures but not enough to describe how big was my experience . i live day a day i dont think too much in the future but what i know is how hard is going to be back home and understand the live i had before my experience.
best regards
Alejandro
What an amazing response, Alejandro! You bring up so many important elements to this – especially the part about living somewhere “forever.” The thought of that kind of freaks me out. Being in one place forever sounds wonderful: same friends, same house, same neighbors, etc. I want to establish roots and be connected to place and people. But on the other hand, I want to feel that I will be able to discover all of those places out there when I am ready. But will I ever be ready? My husband and I think that spending something like 3 months each year in another country would be great (if we can figure it out financially). Maybe working on a farm in a different country each summer to earn our stay? Who knows.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and personal experiences. It means a lot to all of us who know exactly what you are going through!
My family and I are currently living in Bolivia and have been for 6+ years. At the end of this year we are being sent back to our ‘home’ country. We are not very happy about it. We will leave behind a 20 year old son who is nationalising. We will take our adopted 4 year olds. I will need to speak Spanish to them instead of English to keep them from leaving it behind and our 18 year old daughter will go back to our country to study but not to stay. Where is home? I have always shifted from town to town but now it is something bigger – I have two countries, two cultures, two languages and two homes and the closest I can get to home is when all my kids are in the same place with me.
We are never the same,
Tracey
Tracey, how did your move go? I apologize for not responding sooner! I totally understand what you are feeling and the worries that go with such a big transition! Where are you now? How is your family dealing with the changes?
Something that I noticed when my husband and I moved back to the US: the first year was hell for me. I cried and cried. I hated Seattle, thought it was the ugliest city I had ever seen. I hated the people here. Now I love living here. It took a year for me to make it home and now it is. I love everything about this city (except for the typical little annoying things). Making a place a real home takes time and no one can tell us how long it will take. It may take you 2 years, it may only take you 2 months. You will know when your new home really becomes “home” in the full sense of the word. Give yourself the time to grieve your old home and to be angry with your new home. That is natural. Grieving is something that has to happen before we can be open to what is new. We just have to make sure that we can stop grieving when we are done – sometimes we can get caught up in the grieving to the point that we can’t imagine life without it. That isn’t good either.
Thank you for sharing your heart-felt, honest comment! And please let us know how things are now!
Feeling the same here, you are not alone, unconfortable non belonging is balanced with international and personal satisfactions . But there are ups and downs.
Yes, what you write is so true, Luxy! There are so many ups and downs – often what we are feeling right now, this second, is temporary (yet it feels like it will last forever). As you say, it is all a balancing act: nothing is 100% perfect, it is all about how we see what we DO have. The ups and downs are so worth it, wouldn’t you say? I hate and love the ups and downs all at the same time. It is definitely what they call a “love-hate relationship”! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! Your comment inspired me to head over here to respond to yours and some other long overdue comments. So wonderful to have this discussion with everyone!
Guess what?? – this has become a very long-winded, complicated and painful experience as our adoption took 3 months longer and we are still in Bolivia as our country (NZ) won’t let the girls in until they are NZ citizens 2-6mths (waiting for pre-approval so they can hopefully enter on a visitors visa 1mth). Our older daughter took a 6 month volunteer trip to India and is now coming back to Bolivia to study (it is her home). So we are wanting to stay here and wishing a job would come up and also packed to return to our ‘home country’. We came with two tweeners and leave with two preschoolers and the big kids stay here. We will never be completely separated from this country that we love as much as our own. (Feeling rejected by our own country). We are in limbo land – wanting to continue life here but knowing it is not possible for now. We will be back I am sure.
It is harder as we are not sure what city we are going to and if we will have old friends nearby or noone or what? I want a place that will support our spanish speaking with the girls. I know i will be sad and cry – I am leaving behind my life and will only have part of my family with me.
I can really relate to what lots of the responses have said and I am not looking forward to this experience, I know we survived/thrived coming here and I am sure there will be positives in the return, but I sense and am planning a lot of to-ing and fro-ing over the next few years. Thank you for your understanding.
Thank you so much for taking the time to post your update, Tracey! How frustrating to be stuck in limbo – not here or there… wondering when and if! It is interesting how our children can’t help but feel familiar in the country in which they grow up (as you say about your older children), regardless of what our culture(s) are!
Being that your older children feel most comfortable in Bolivia (at least for now) it sounds like no matter where you end up, you will have a direct connection with Bolivia, at least through your older children!
Please keep us posted and good luck from all of us!
What a great post. Also lovely to read everyone’s comments. I love being a nomad, I’ve lived in UK, Bermuda, Sicily, Spain, France and short stays (few months) in USA and Canada.
I found Spain and Bermuda were where I felt most connected, comfortable, myself… Going back to England now is lovely but I am aware of all the constraints as well as the advantages. I am currently in France where it took me a very long time to settle compared to the other countries I have lived in.
I love being able to take off and make friends, “live” a new coutry and culture. For me this experience is one of the most interesting and fulfilling there is. I do admit on ‘bad’ days I can feel rootless and adrift with nowhere to call home… Sometimes there is an internal conflict with your beliefs and values and those of the country you have decided to make your home and that can leave you feeling destabilised and insecure.
However the benefits, the challenge, the delight in making new friends, discovering new outlooks, different cultures and experiencing all that can be found when exploring a new country is so exciting. It gives a vibrancy to life that I don’t think I would have found by staying in my original hometown so I wouldn’t change a thing!!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences, Anna! I totally agree with you about the waxing and waning of feelings – ‘good’ days and ‘bad’ days. It is interesting that France was once place where it took you a long time to settling in compared to the others. Is there any reason in particular? I found moving to Seattle to be extremely difficult. I really loved living in Germany (while at the same time longing for the US) and when I arrived in Seattle it felt so foreign to me and chaotic. Compared to the rather structured culture of Germany, Seattle felt like anything could happen (good and bad) and it frightened me. It also looked ugly to me after having lived in a city with brick buildings and sidewalks – everything seemed to match and fit together well. Seattle felt like a jumbled mess of different styles of buildings and wires everywhere across the sky. However, after a year I started feeling really comfortable here and started seeing the little things that I had missed originally. And now I love living here (but still long for Germany now and then).
Having lived more than a quarter of my life in my adopted country–I find that I’m unable to unravel how much Mexico has changed me from how much time has changed me. When I last lived in the US I was a carefree college student. So of course I’m a different person now, but of course I’m also different from the person I would have been had I never left home.
You are so right, Melissa! While living in other countries, we are growing and maturing as human beings. We will never know how that would have been different in our ‘home’ country. My husband and I talk about this a lot when we visit family in Germany – the last time we lived there we were students. Buying a house, getting ‘real’ jobs, starting a family, raising children – all of that has happened here in the States. But it would have happened over there had we stayed and overall many of the changes probably would have felt just as they do now. Becoming a parent feels amazing and life-changing no matter where someone lives! Thank you so much for sharing!
Very well said, Corey. I have had to help my two daughters through this in the months and years following their 6-month immersion experiences living with another family in France at the ages of 9 and 10. While it’s hard at times, if you ask them they’ll never say they wish they hadn’t gone so that they could avoid the pain of living apart from their second home. And although sometimes I feel guilty as a mom at having opened them up this sense of loss in their lives, ultimately I know they’re much richer, more human, for their experiences. And so are you.
Amy Van Vranken´s last [type] ..Bandeau flash
Thank you so much for this reminder, Amy! We aren’t the only ones who feel this sense of belonging to more than one place: our children feel it as well! I will never know what it is like to grow up with this kind of identification. My assumption is that our children take it at face value as being a part of life. I realize that my children won’t have that experience as a young adult (as I did) of flying in an airplane for the first time when going on an Education Abroad Program while in college. That was the first time I had ever flown! My children have flown to Germany so many times, they don’t even think about it as not being a part of their lives. Part of me loves that and another part of me is sad that it won’t be something special for when they are older. I love that you included “more human” in what you wrote. That is the biggest part! Learning to live in another country makes us more human!
Hello! I was born in germany from a german mother and an italian father. Then at the age of 7 i moved back to Italy and so i was grewd up with two languages and two cultures!Then at elementary and high school i lerned french and english and so now at the age of 31 i’m abel to speak four languages !This gave me the chance to find easly a favoulous and interesting job!! I reccomend to all new parents to teach 2 or better 3 languages to your childrens as soon as possible!!:-)
Fabio
I totally agree, Fabio! What a wonderful experience that you had a chance to live in both countries (Germany and Italy). There was a woman in my German language class in Kiel, Germany who had grown up in Italy and one of her parents was German. So she spoke perfect German but didn’t know how to read or write it. She was taking the German language class in Kiel to finally learn that. I was so envious of her being able to speak it so well and of course she learned to read and write it with amazing speed. Raising our children with our languages is definitely the way to go!
Corey
I really enjoyed reading your post….totally true.
I am from Paraguay…but I have been away from my “home” country for a while. It started with a small trip, then the trips were getting longer… from 1 year up to 3….
I am a dancer and coincidentally my MFA project ( a year ago) was related to “being in transit”. The piece was called: Passenger, a dance theatre exploration of identity, relationships, and society from the vantage point of a foreigner in an unfamiliar culture. The work offered a different take on traveling and being in transit….but at the end my goal was to simply portray: “it all depends on us, we are the creator of our lives; is our body and our choices.”
I take the best I can from all the places I go…I love traveling, getting to know new people, cultures….and I am sure that all this experience has built my personality differently than if I never left Paraguay. Off course there are hard moments…but I am happy of having done everything I had…I am willing to keep enjoying every moment of it….traveling or staying in one place…
Ale´s last [type] ..Mi blog
Ale, your dance piece sounds amazing! I would love to have seen that! I did ballet for 10 years when I was younger and wish I still did some kind of formal dancing instruction: it is amazing how much we can express with the movement of our bodies (aside from the healing that can take place through it!). I love what you write about it all depending on us and that we are the creators of our lives. YES! I realize how often my thinking is what holds me back or sets me free. I can look out my window and think to myself, “If only we were in Germany.” Or I can look out my window and say to myself, “Look at that beautiful sky! I am so happy here!” Both of those thoughts are there – it is all about which one I feed. Thank you for sharing your comment!
I’m so glad I finally find an space where I can relate myself with other people experiences. I left my home country Colombia almost 4 years ago and I have to say that it’s been a windy road with ups and downs and I genuinely never thought someone else could feel the way that I was feeling. It’s a mixture of feelings you feel happy, sad, guilty and very judgemental feelings that always find the way to disturb your day. I’ve lived in Colombia, Canada and I ended up in the UK in a very small village after travelled around the world “well just a small portion of it”. But now I look back and I realize that I’m so bless that I’m the luckiest person in the world and that I have no right to complain because all that I have is what I wanted and I want to have. I love where I live but to be honest as long as I’m with my husband I can live anywhere, my family is home for me.
Thanks for creating this blog Corey I think you are amazing and I think all the people commenting your article are unbelievably strong and thanks for making me feel not alone.
Thank you for leaving this comment, Juliana! I am so glad that you were able to relate to this post. I gain such a sense of camaraderie when I read all of these comments – we aren’t alone in feeling a little lost, a little adrift. Knowing that it is ok to feel this way is so important. I remind myself that is ok to feel sad, guilty and judgmental from time to time as long as I also remember what you wrote: “my family is home for me.” That is so true, isn’t it?
After my mother died at age 65, I went into a kind of frenzied panic. I think I was feeling that I had to hurry up and get things done before my time came. I started seeing a therapist and I will never forget what he said to me in one of my first sessions: “Go home, read a book, do the laundry, take a walk.” His point was that my mind was filled with 101 different things that had nothing to do with right here and right now. I wasn’t enjoying (let alone noticing) what my life was this very moment. I remind myself of this a lot and it makes life so much more wonderful.
This is so timely: I recently met up with an old friend from living abroad days, and even 20 years later, we both agreed it was the most important period in our lives as far as making us who we have become. I hope my own children will do the same one day and learn see themselves as citizens of the world, as well as the cozy hometown in which they have always lived.
Suzie´s last [type] ..chocolate agave syrup
That is so fantastic, Suzie! I can totally relate! It was definitely one of the most important times of my life. I can’t even count the ways it impacted me positively (although at times painfully). Living abroad for a time extends us into a level of humanity that is almost impossible to describe. We are so comfortable in our little worlds that we think the rest of humanity things, acts and feels like we do. Then we go abroad and realize that our way of living is not necessarily understood or appreciated elsewhere – which is a good thing (although painful to realize too). And when we realize that the way others live has so many wonderful things about it too, we can’t help but come to terms with the fact that there is no one right way to live. There are simply many right ways to live! Here’s to being a citizen of the world in the comforts of our cozy hometowns/countries.
Hi there,
I just found this post through another one written in Spanish and referencing this one:
“http://www.reven.org/blog/2010/06/11/sindrome-del-viajero-eterno/” something like the “perpetual traveler syndrome”.
Thinking about the subject I remembered a reference in the literature you may remember. Think about the hobbits in The Lord of The Rings, how the journey changes them, they are always saying they miss home and want to go back there, but at the end of the journey and they finally return home, that place don’t feel as home anymore (at least for Frodo) and he can’t do any other thing but keep travelling. I remember reading the story many years ago, I wonder if reading it again I will find it has more to do with my own feelings.
Thanks for the post and good luck to all expats around the world!
Oh goodness, Xevi, you are right about that being a theme in the Lord of the Rings!!! I hadn’t even thought about it! I too will have to read it again! I am so happy you left this comment! And I forgot about Frodo feeling that home wasn’t expansive enough for what he had experienced and seen. I wonder, what IS that which happens to us? Why do our hometowns now feel too small, to simple? It isn’t from a sense of arrogance that we feel that way. It’s a kind of longing for more experiences of newness and different-ness.
I have noticed that many hundreds of people have found my post from the reven.org post that you reference above! I would like to know more about that website and I wish I knew Spanish so that I could read what was written in the original. It must be an amazing post for so many people to be reading it! I am honored that reven.org included a link to my post. Clearly a wonderful group of people are making there way to my website and I welcome everyone with open arms! Here’s to living abroad and taking the chance of being changed completely and fully!
‘what I lost in hometown comfort, I have gained in international familiarity’ captures it perfectly. Like you, the moment I got on a plane to live my first time overseas I was hooked. Had always known I’d study international affairs and work in that arena; also married an ATCK, and now live overseas with our two teens (one actually back in US for university, dealing reasonably well with repatriation and feelings of here/there/nowhere/both). We talk about these kinds of issues and I share the latest books, but in the end, to me Pollock & Van Reken’s Third Culture Kids is the bible for all global nomads/expats/serial wanderers, and the basis for good books that have followed.
linda@adventuresinexpatland.com´s last [type] ..Head of Delegation Written All Over Her
Hi Corey,
I think a comment was due, if only because of the people that have read the article on my website and have referenced it here. As I said, the honor is mine; your words helped give form to a lot of ideas I had and that I hadn’t quite materialized, though I had talked about it at lenth with a chosen few who understand that feeling themselves.
It’s great to know so many people out there who think similarly and who have walked similar paths. As it turns out, we all yearned to belong somewhere and now we can actually say that we belong to this great tribe of nomads. After all, home is where we are.
Yep, yep, and yep ! I also wrote about this a few years back.
http://katianovetsaintlot.blogspot.com/2008/09/expat-musings.html
Spent a school year in the USA when I was 14. Being half German half Spanish, I have lived for months in Germany, Switzerland but most of my life in Spain. The feeling of not belonging has always been with me. The perfect country to live in is in my head, I guess
I have been feeling this way for a long time. I live between France and Australia. I moved to Australia when I was 12, and I am now 24. Apart from the regular trips back and forth, my passion is travelling, encountering new cultures, languages, foods, smells, sights. However, this has stopped from ever committing. The only thing I have managed to get right is studies through online learning that have lead me back to Australia (for now). I leave home to go home. The question I get asked most is ‘where is home for you?’ I never know what to reply. People are jealous of my lifestyle, but I’m jealous of their stability and routine. Yes, my life has many advantages, but the grass is always greener on the other side. If I stop too long in the same place, I feel stuck, and start making plans for a new destination. But as many people have already commented, home is where the heart is, and my being single is of no help for me. I can feel the solution, the need for a partner to become my home and finally feel stable in some part of my life. But how easy is it? Not so easy, most people admire my ‘nomadness’ but not many are willing to live that way. I could not live without ‘the world’, but it’s too big for my liking and a dilemma.
But all in all it’s nice to have others feel the same way (I knew I wasn’t alone in this), and more to have written down, black on white, so clearly.
Thank you.
Hi Kitty!
I just felt for a moment that it was me who wrote this
100% identified!
I could relate to your post as I’ve lived abroad and then returned home. However, now abroad is home.
This post is a perfect description of my cosmopolitan ego! Truly touching
I’m glad I found you 
Melinda´s last [type] ..Valami bűzlik Dániában. Győződj meg magad!
So true
I am 28 years old, and i have lived in 3 countries and traveled around 15 countries. My home country is Colombia, in my 20s I went to France where I lived for 6 years, then England for 1 year and now Colombia for 1 year and ½. My new destination is Quebec for a residency. I feel the need to move and travel and i just cant be really stable, I get bored in the same place! This is something that brings me a lot of difficulties in my work. I hope Canada will bring a little bit of everything. The sad part maybe is the feeling of not feeling that you have a specific identity, and being criticized in your home country, because you are no longer like them, because you are different and a mix of cultures and people can’t understand that.
And yes, I also miss my friends, the polish, the czechs, the french, the indians, the romanians, etc, but they have a huge place in my memories. I miss the order, the security and tons of other things!
Thanks for this great insight. More people need to understand this feeling of being suspended between cultures and homes. My parents took me to S. Korea in 1966 as a ten month old girl, and we lived there until I was 16 years old. I was ok in the US for a couple years, but in my twenties I struggled. I literally grieved my home country. For me, the ability to go back and visit (I go every few years) has been my healing. And every time I visit, the time in between visits is shorter and shorter. I find this sense of loss hard to explain to those who have not gone through it – and partly for that reason I’m writing a memoir of sorts about our Korea experience. Loss, and deep thankfulness for such a rich experience is always something people like us will carry, hidden behind faces that look “home” in America. I hope my book can do justice to the depth of feeling behind these cross-cultural experiences.
Ohhh nooo, i currently feel this sensation.
I began to travel for studies in 2006.
In 2009, i had to come back home permanently,and my life is not the same since 3 years ago.
I feel that the only thing or person that make me rest in my country, is my mother, because i feel that not belong here anymore.I don’t have friends, a full time job, social life, anything, so i need two things to feel like at home again (my real friends and boyfriend) and i think that i want to feel at home again and i will back in this my foreign but new home now.
What a lovely piece of writing!
I find that it is difficult to explain to people – it is difficult to express to someone who is for the most part ignorant of what it feels like to have ventured beyond the safety of where they grew up!
People I know go on holiday and despite the change in culture and climate are really not in a new place at all. It’s like they have “left the nest” but not the tree.
Stephen Choi´s last [type] ..29th Stop: Sydney and Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
Corey,
First of all THANKS for sharing your thoughts and writing this GREAT article.
I completely agree with you. I have been feeling this way since I started traveling around the world but I always thought it was due to my will of getting to know new places, new cultures or even to find somewhere to belong to.
However, this lack of hometown comfort has increased after coming back to Spain from the states. I lived there for 3 years and I keep thinking if I should have stayed there or not… The truth is that my mind ,and my heart, are still out there… somewhere… I already applied for another job abroad, this time in Canada. It´s like a hunger of discovering new cultures, places, people… and can’t help it. An emptiness that can’t be filled in here, in my country… I love my family and my friends, I really do but I have the need to fly away again and get soaked by new experiences in other countries.
my friends and family here can’t see it.. so frustrating!
I felt so relief when I read your article!!
What is irrefutable is that I am who I am thanks to all these unforgettable experiences I had around the globe. Nothing may open your eyes more to understanding humanity than traveling. I am thankful for having had the opportunity to meet all these amazing friends and shared wonderful times with them wherever it was.
I love having this international familiarity you mentioned in your article but at the same time I am afraid of not being able to feel “at home” anywhere…
Excellent text! It was a little bit difficult for me to understand that ’cause I am an spanish speaker, but with google I did!! haha!
Although I still never travel abroad, I have the same sensation each time I leave home. I love travel, I love make friends and meet everywhere. In a less degree, it is the same sensation that you have describe before very well .
I have the sensation to make from each place my place, and bit by bit introducing me slowly in a new community, in a new society, in a new culture, so I felt identified with your text.
Maybe the soul of the traveller does no have nation, no religion, no language, and so we feel ourselves as we are citizens of the world. All places we have been before belong to us, and at the same time it is not ours. The same occurs with the people we have met. I think this is because we have a great heart and because we are so sensibles. I thought it would be easy to explain but as you can see…
Chauu
I love your wine metaphor. I used to work in the wine business and I appreciated the idea of “terroir”, belonging to one’s land and representing it. However, as I was de-rooted at a young age and have lived in various countries since then, I’ve come to see myself as a multirooted wine. However, this leads people to misinterpret me and think I am supposed to be someone who I am not. Familiar smells of food and beverages are my most basic pulls to my feeling of being “at home”.
Oh Corey, you have written such a good article. You have summed it up so well.
I spent half of my life “overseas”; living in 3 countries other than my home country. And there might be a possibility of moving to another country, yet again, this time with my husband and children
I always miss the countries I have lived in; friends, food, smell, the seasons, the languages and all the small details. As you say, they are part of me now and I carry them in my heart
)
I was happy to read your article. I feel all this feeling and even have developed a bit of anxiety after living in 5 countries. I will never be the same, I dream and have dreams of always going back to my original Buenos Aires city, but in my dreams I always have a sense of not beng content and wanting to come back to Toronto, like I don’t belong anymore. I thought it was just me feeling this way. I feel I should be rich, so that i can live in all the places I have once enjoyed so much.
“What I constantly contend with now is a continual pull to go back; a pull to go back anywhere as long as it isn’t here. Yet when I am back there, I feel the pull to return here, the place I call home. It is as if I am living in a kind of suspended reality, never really here and never really there; restless.”
Couldn’t think of a better way to describe this! So dead on with that feeling!
A real article worth thinking about.
I am a British Expatriate who left the UK to move to Finland 23 years ago
I have settled ib´n Finland well even after the initial culture schock
I tried to return to the UK after 10 year s living abroad and it was a disaster.The UK just never lived up to the lifestyle and quality of life I have in Finland
In 1988 when I left England,crime,srikes and society faigs were rife
On my last visit to the UK for a bereavement the situation has worsened
Thanks,I WILL STAY HERE IN hELSINKI fINLAND
Gr eg@Travel Finland Blog´s last [type] ..Film Location Top Reasons to Use a Film Locations Specialist
Wow… Thanks for this post! You really can’t imagine it when you haven’t experienced it… I felt so lost when I came back home from Spain! Everything in Belgium seemed so out of place and irrelevant: people stressing out over the tiniest things, the rapid pace of life I wasn’t able to connect with anymore… It took me a while to adjust and even now after 4 years, it still feels like yesterday walking through the streets of Málaga with an entire ‘family’ from 20 different countries.
The Erasmus experiences has opened my eyes and mind in so many ways. Not to mention true friendships I found abroad. Can’t wait to meet up with everybody again
!
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