The Unexpected Gift of Homesickness

What nobody tells you about homesickness.  

If you've been following this series, you'll know that we've already talked about starting over, learning new languages and building a life rather than simply planning a move.

There's one part of moving abroad, however, that almost nobody prepares you for.

Homesickness.

Not the dramatic kind you see in films.

The quiet, unexpected kind.

The kind that sneaks up on you when you're least expecting it.

Mine arrived one ordinary evening in Berlin.

After a long day at work, I came home tired and hungry.

Without really thinking about it, I suddenly found myself craving my favourite comfort food from childhood.

Baked beans on toast.

Not just any baked beans on toast.

Toast spread generously with Marmite, topped with a slice of mature Cheddar cheese, and then covered with hot baked beans.

To most of the world, that probably sounds completely ridiculous.

To me, it tasted like home.

There was just one problem.

Back in 2009, none of those things were easy to find in Berlin.

No Marmite.

No proper sliced Cheddar.

No Heinz baked beans sitting on every supermarket shelf.

I remember standing there feeling strangely disappointed.

It wasn't really about the food.

It was about what the food represented.

Until that moment, part of me still felt as though I was simply away from home for a while.

Suddenly I realised something much deeper.

This wasn't a long holiday.

I wasn't going back next week.

Germany wasn't somewhere I was visiting.

It was where I now lived.

That tiny disappointment over a slice of toast somehow carried the full emotional weight of leaving one country behind and beginning another.

Homesickness is like that.

It rarely announces itself dramatically.

More often it arrives disguised as something completely ordinary.

A familiar smell.

A television programme.

The sound of rain.

Christmas.

Your favourite chocolate.

The first family birthday you miss.

A joke that nobody else understands.

Or simply a meal that tastes different from the one you've loved all your life.

That's why I think homesickness is often misunderstood.

People assume it means you've made a mistake.

It doesn't.

It usually means you've loved somewhere enough to miss it.

Those aren't the same thing.

In fact, I've come to think that homesickness and excitement often exist together.

You can love your new country, while still missing your old one.

You can feel grateful, while occasionally feeling sad.

You can be building a wonderful new life, while quietly mourning the one you've left behind.

Those emotions don't compete with one another.

They're simply different expressions of love.

The good news is that homesickness changes.

Not because you forget where you've come from.

But because your new country slowly begins to create memories of its own.

One day you'll have a favourite café.

Then a favourite walking route.

A neighbour who knows your name.

A local festival you look forward to every year.

Without really noticing it, your new country begins to accumulate emotional landmarks.

Home isn't replacing your old home.

It's quietly growing alongside it.

So what can you do when homesickness appears?

First, don't fight it.

It's a sign that your past mattered.

Second, keep some traditions alive.

Cook the meals you grew up with.

Celebrate familiar holidays.

Listen to music that reminds you where you've come from.

Third — and this is perhaps the most important — don't spend all your time recreating your old life.

Create new rituals as well.

Find a local café.

Learn local recipes.

Join local celebrations.

Allow your new country to become more than simply the place where you now happen to live.

Eventually you'll discover something rather beautiful.

Home is no longer a single place.

It's become part of who you are.

One final thought.

One of the unexpected gifts of living abroad is that, after a while, the meaning of the word home changes.

At first, home is the place you've left behind.

Then, gradually, your new country begins to feel familiar too.

One day you realise something rather beautiful.

Home is no longer a single place on a map.

It's become something you carry within you.

You can return to your country of birth and still feel slightly foreign.

Yet you can also arrive in your adopted country and experience the quiet comfort of belonging.

The world somehow becomes both larger and smaller at the same time.

Children who grow up between cultures often understand this instinctively. Researchers sometimes refer to them as Third Culture Kids because they develop a sense of identity that belongs fully to neither culture and yet is enriched by both.

Perhaps that's true of adults as well.

When we open ourselves to another country, another language and another way of living, we don't simply acquire a second home.

We expand our understanding of what home can mean.

 Auf Wiedersehen, Berlin!

This will be my last post from Berlin, my home for the last 16 years. It has been a real privilege to live here and I'd like to thank everyone who made my life here so enjoyable and enriching. 

Next time we'll look at another challenge that catches many newcomers by surprise.

It's called the expat trap — and it's one of the easiest mistakes to make when you're trying to build a new life abroad.

SIMPLY. BETTER. LIVING. 

"The greatest gift of moving abroad isn't finding another place to live. It's discovering that home was never just a place."