I Just Moved Back Home After Living Abroad and This Is What I Learned
Returning can be more challenging than going away
I am a serial emigrant.
But also a serial “returner”. I lived in France, the UK, and Hungary, but in between those stints abroad, I always came back to spend time in Portugal.
Last month, I returned again, after 3.5 years in Budapest.
Going back to your own country after living abroad is a special kind of adventure. A quiet yet challenging experience that puts into perspective who you are.
If you have ever gone through this process, I bet you can relate to the points below.
In some ways, it’s harder than moving abroad
Reverse cultural shock is a real thing.
When you move abroad, you expect the new culture to be different. When you move back home you think you know the culture.
But the culture changed over time, and so did you. It’s not the exact same country you left, and you are certainly not the same person after all the experiences you had.
The discrepancy between your expectations and the reality you encounter can cause a feeling of displacement, of being in a limbo that you don’t understand. You thought you were moving home but you find yourself in a foreign country that you never knew existed.
It’s the little things:
- People not taking their shoes off when they enter a home
- People arriving 20 minutes late and considering it as being on time
- Friends meeting for dinner at very late hours
- Everyone driving instead of taking public transportation
This was part of your culture growing up. But in the meantime, you discovered new ways of living, and you got used to them. It’s hard to go back.
Tourists know your country better than you
The other day, I was talking about a Portuguese tax rule, complaining about how unnecessarily complicated it is. My partner interrupted me to say:
“It hasn’t been like that for 10 years”
I have been caught in situations like this a lot lately.
My friends constantly mention hip restaurants I never heard of.
There are parts of Lisbon that I always knew as decaying but now it seems they’re the cool, trendy areas.
When I left, people didn’t have a way to send money to each other on their phones. Now everyone has an app that allows it (MBWay) and I’m called out regularly for still not having set it up.
Things change slowly over time. But when you are away for a few years and then return, it feels like everything changed all of a sudden.
If someone asks me for recommendations on where to go for dinner in Lisbon, I don’t know what to suggest. I often get the feeling that my foreign friends who come to visit know the city a lot better than I do.
The last time I lived in Lisbon was in 2014. That’s a world of distance away, I have 7 years of catching up to do.
Some things stay the same forever
In front of my elementary school, there was a candy shop that we visited almost every day. I still remember the face of the lady who worked there.
Last week, I walked past the shop. The lady was still there, only with whiter hair and a wrinkled face. I have no idea what else she did in her life besides selling candy, but she kept the same job for over 20 years.
It feels weird.
I first moved abroad at 21. Since then, I lived in France, the UK, and Hungary. I visited 30 countries. I built a career in communications. I changed careers to IT. I met hundreds of people and got my horizons broadly expanded.
During all this time, the lady sold candy.
When you adopt a new home, everything is new. The barista at your new favorite coffee shop? They just started that job, for all you know.
Going back to the place where you grew up gives you a different perception of time. Some things seem infinite as if they were always there, and always will be. It’s creepy and reassuring at the same time.
You will never feel whole again
France was my first home away from home.
Whenever I go there, I feel a joy I can’t explain. And when I am away, I miss the pastries, the cheese, and the wine. I miss the Parisian streets and the stunning architecture. Sometimes, I walk the streets of Lisbon and wish we had half the care with our buildings that the French do.
It’s been 5 years since I left the UK, but many Fridays at 5 pm, when I finish work, I hear a little voice inside my head telling me it’s pub time. We don’t have pubs in Portugal. We have bars, but they are not quite the same.
From Hungary, I miss living right in the middle of the city. Getting out of the door and being at the heart of the coolest city in Europe.
I made a choice to move back to Portugal and I value all the good aspects of my life here. But that doesn’t mean that what I lived before disappeared. I left a bit of my heart everywhere I lived, and being an expat is accepting that. That home is wherever your heart is, even if that means it’s scattered all over Europe.
Takeaway
How you feel after returning home depends on a lot of factors. How long you stayed away, how often you visited home, and how different was the culture in your adopted country.
But in the end, the place where you grew up will always be different from the rest of the world. Even if most of us have a love-hate relationship with it. It’s not me saying it, it’s Bruce Springsteen.
“If you take me, I’m Mr. Born to Run. I’m Mr. Thunder F*cking Road. I was born to run, not to stay. My home, New Jersey — it’s a death trap. It’s a suicide rap. I am gonna run, run, run, and I’m — well I’m never coming back.
I currently live ten minutes from my hometown.”