Life of an expatriate

Moving to new pastures

“Better be imprudent movables than prudent fixtures” - John Keats

I was raised by the idea that foreign land was the place where real magic happens.
The unknown had a mystique of its own, and I couldn’t help but get swept up in the fervour of it. I had not given more than a fleeting thought to the loneliness that crops up, this one my parents didn’t tell me or I had to discover on my own. There was no longer the familiar clutch and debrief with friends at the end of a long day.

Accustomed to being able to navigate the various logistics of a life I lived since childhood, in England I was often flummoxed: by GP surgeries, jobcentre plus, driving instructors, super market stores for the parity in the prices of cheese and chicken.

The streets had cobblestone roads, houses with red tiled rooftops and no or a merely non existent concept of gated housing. This made me automatically assume that the residents would be warm and welcoming.

However, soon I gathered that whilst some neighbours were genuinely cordial, others formed stubbornly superficial relationships and dare I stopped during a light evening stroll to admire the Xmas decorations outside their home, as someone once had yelled at me from inside’ Oye’ what are you doing? and I apologised with a rueful smile and then hastily took scurried steps back home.

When we move abroad, we crave for something tangible or recognizable, things we never have known we needed: flavour and foods, love and companionship,
routine and purpose and forever lost no matter our location. The real immersion occurs during this shift. Balancing the need for the familiar with our desire for the exotic is at the heart of an expat experience.