Moving abroad is often described as exciting, brave, and full of opportunity. What I never expected were the quiet changes—the emotional shifts that don’t announce themselves but slowly reshape how you see the world and yourself.
Loneliness Abroad: What No One Talks About
Loneliness abroad doesn’t always mean being alone. It can exist even when your days are full and your schedule looks busy. It shows up in small moments—when you have news to share but no familiar voice to call, or when conversations stay polite but never deep.
No one really talks about how lonely it feels to constantly explain yourself—your accent, your background, your story. Over time, you learn to keep parts of yourself quiet, not because you want to, but because it feels easier.
Living Between Two Worlds
After moving abroad, I realized I no longer fully belonged to just one place.
Back home, life continued without me. New routines formed. People changed. And while I was building a life elsewhere, I carried memories of who I used to be. Abroad, I was growing—but back home, I was frozen in time in people’s minds.
Living between two worlds means missing one place while standing in another. It means feeling grateful and guilty at the same time. It’s a constant balancing act between where you came from and who you are becoming.
When Home Doesn’t Feel the Same Anymore
One of the hardest realizations was that home didn’t feel the same anymore—and neither did I.
Visits felt shorter. Conversations felt different. I had changed in ways that were hard to explain. Home was still home, but I no longer fit into it the same way. That loss is quiet, but it stays with you.
Learning to Accept the In-Between
What I’ve learned is this: feeling out of place doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. It means you grew.
Living abroad teaches you to live with uncertainty, to accept change, and to find comfort in the in-between. And slowly, you realize that being between two worlds doesn’t mean you belong nowhere—it means you belong to more than one place.
That is something I never expected after moving abroad—but something I now carry with me every day.
