What No One Tells You About Living Abroad

What no one tells you about living abroad? I have lived abroad for almost ten years now, in various countries across the world. There are so many things no one tells you about living abroad. There are so many things you can’t predict. But I think in today’s social media-mindset, traveling abroad seems like a picture-perfect dream. And while there are so many benefits to traveling, really traveling, as well as to living outside of your home country, which I try to extol as much as I can, there are also some very hard moments.

I moved to Sicily two years ago, and I love it. Talk to anyone who knows me: I am Palermo’s biggest fan. There really is no where else I would rather put down roots. A large part of it is that this is where my family is from. I have a deep connection to this island and to my heritage. For me, if I am going to live outside of my home country, this is the place that “makes sense.” For me, it just clicked. Even though there are days where it is challenging, or it feels like a bureaucratic errand is never going to be successful, or the days like today when I feel like I’m never going to be able to “make it,” - what keeps me rooted to the land is literally my roots. There is no place I’d rather be.

Recently though, I have started to struggle. I don’t know if it that I have now lived in Palermo longer than I have lived anywhere else since I left home, so maybe this is normal. This is when things get tough. I am about to finish my Master’s degree here, God-willing, so I will have to find a way to financially support myself, which pretty much everyone I know has told me is not easy to do here. Now I will have to come to terms with what it really means to live here, not just be to be studying, but to really be making a life here.

I miss my family. I miss their support and just having them around. I miss the little moments when you’re just hanging out. I talk to my parents almost everyday on FaceTime, and yet it’s still not the same. When you move abroad you miss that.

You also miss the feeling of just being able to go home, to have a refuge. I was really struggling this year, and I knew that if I was living in the US, I could have just gone to my mom’s house, even for a weekend, and so much would have been better. But you don’t have that living abroad. I did eventually go home, but it costs a lot of money, and again, once I start working I won’t be able to just skip off for three weeks.

When you move abroad, you basically start from zero. Even if in your home country you have it all: house, car, job, friends - when you move abroad, you have to start over. I mean, I have to go to driving school again. Maybe it’s just my own self-esteem issues (definitely), but it actually makes me feel so lame. I feel behind my classmates, who “just know” how the university works, but I am instead learning a whole new academic and administrative system. I envy my friends whose families help them find a new place, while I have ended up with nightmare landlords and literally inhabitable apartments. The point is that you don’t know what you’re doing. You have to learn as you go.

Maybe this is a universal part of growing up. I only associate these experiences with living abroad because that’s where I’ve grown up. Maybe I am just having a hard time right now. Probably both are true. What I want to say though is that living abroad is not insta-perfect and it’s not easy. It will challenge you in so many ways. It is also incredibly rewarding, of course. The past ten years have taught me so much about the world, and about myself. I am 100% a better person because of the travelling I’ve done. I hope to continue to travel as much as I can. But at some point, you do realize what you are giving up, and what you are missing. It is not easy. Sometimes, it is really hard.

I recently saw a post, I forget about what, maybe finding what you “want to do with your life,” (as if you could answer that!). One of the questions they asked was, “What would you do if you knew you only had one year to live?” Without hesitating, I knew what my response was: go home. When you move abroad, you understand what is truly important. What I also know is that, at least for now, this is where I want to live my life. This is where I want to build “my home.” I have already overcome so many obstacles: first, just to get here, and then to lay the foundations of my life. Since I have moved to Palermo, I have spent months in pandemic lockdown and then began my Master’s which has kept me pretty busy (read: overwhelmed and all-consumed). Despite that, I have made many friends and really feel like I have a community here. I want to give myself the chance to really live here. I especially want to have more opportunities to explore the rest of Sicily. I love Palermo, but whenever I am in a car and we get on the highway - wow. The countryside and coastline of Sicily are spectacular, and it is really my dream to explore here, and to just be here. To enjoy all that Sicily has to offer.

When I complain about living abroad, and the apartments-with-no-heat and the university-with-no-calendar, people like to remind me that this is the choice I made. I kind of hate this response, because it makes me feel somehow that I am not allowed to complain when things get tough. I don’t think that’s fair, but I also don’t really think that’s what they are saying. At the end of the day, living abroad is a dream- and a gift. I in no way take it for granted that I am literally living my dream, which for many years I could not have imagined coming true. Yes, I have struggled, and I’m sure there are more challenges ahead. Yes, I will have to learn many new things and still be very patient. Because, yes, I chose to start over. I chose to leave behind the place I knew because there was something here I wanted to discover. Even though things are hard, they do get easier. If I look back on one year ago, or on when I first moved here, things are much better. I am learning more and more everyday. It’s important to not lose sight of how far I’ve come, and to imagine just how far then I can go in the future.

Note: Header image is of Mondello beach, Palermo, Sicily.