My Decade of Living Abroad

Photo: Takeshi Charly

Last month marked ten years since I moved abroad. In September 2015, an 18-year-old me filled a suitcase with some of her possessions and came to a foreign country, the language of which she could barely speak, excited and nervous to discover what adulthood had in store for her.

Fast-forward ten years, and I’m sitting in my studio apartment with a glass of wine, hand-painted autumn-themed candlesticks lit for vibes, racking my brain for a good enough angle for this ten-year immigrant anniversary post, and drawing blanks. I don’t feel qualified to give advice on how to live abroad or impose lessons and morals on everything I’ve learned from ten years of living in a foreign country. I’m just not feeling preachy today.

Instead, I think of this decade and of what a rollercoaster ride it has been. What a shitshow. What an adventure. A challenge. A gift. Some days, life showered me with blessings and showed me how sweet it can get; the next, it kicked me in the shins and punched me in the guts. I guess life’s like that regardless of where you live, but I take pride in having a bit of an expat filter in my messy reality.

So, instead of telling you of all the boring and, undoubtedly, useful lessons I’ve learned, why not go for a walk down memory lane of all the funny, silly, and wholesome things I’ve been a part of, in no particular order, ever since an eighteen-year-old me got off that bus and started her new and scary life in a new and scary country.

• Lived in nine different apartments. Discovered that I’m not made for sharing a place with flatmates, but can coexist blissfully with a romantic partner (conditions apply).
• Changed cities three times. Developed a personalized recipe for a perfect city to live in: a very close proximity to the sea + people to talk to in English.
• Graduated from university. Learned that the real degree was surviving a decade of paperwork, visas, and IKEA furniture assembly.
• Earned money babysitting a three-year-old for half a year. Discovered that the real job sometimes is handling the parent, not the toddler.
• Did an Erasmus+ internship at a hotel on a Greek island. Realized hotels are much better suited to stay at than to work at.
• Fell in love with a Greek man. Came to stay at his family’s home for one summer. Learned enough Greek to decide against learning Greek.
• Received a driving lesson in a boyfriend’s mum’s car in the Greek countryside. Pushed the decision to get a driver’s license ten years further.
• Went to a casino in North Macedonia. If ever there was a “what the hell am I doing here” moment in my life, it was then.
• Fell even more in love with an Argentine-Italian man. Learned enough Spanish to continue learning it even when the relationship was over. Started to plan relocating to Spain. (Still haven’t relocated. Fucking immigration policies.)
• Put a lot of effort into improving my English and Spanish. Got significantly worse at my two mother tongues.
• Adopted a cat with the Argentine-Italian. The man is gone, but the cat’s still with me. Win-win. (Just kidding; the man was alright.)
• Acquired enough books, crystals, and house plants to try and convince myself multiple times to just stay put and not move countries. So far, unsuccessful.
• Became financially independent (sort of). Turns out it’s a lot more fun to have your parents pay for stuff.
• Hosted my younger sister (and her cat) for six months because of a war in our home country. Discovered my cat strongly preferred to be the only child in the household.
• Said goodbye, long-distance, to our family dog. Can’t think of anything humorous to add to this.
• Had my cat diagnosed with cancer. Been watching her kick cancer’s ass in chemotherapy for five months now.
• Had my long-term EU residence application denied because my five-year employment history missed a few criteria. Turns out, in matters such as these, one month of unemployment outweighs fifty-nine months of being employed.
• Started considering alternative ways of relocating. If you’re an altruistic Spanish man willing to consider marrying me, or if you know one, hit me up. Really. (I’m just kidding.) (Or am I?)

There have been times when I felt so lost, so clueless as to what to do and how to live and where to go next that I fell into a full-body paralysis. Other times, it seemed abundantly clear that, as Dolly Alderton put it, life was as simple as breathing in and out. The best part, though, is that I don’t have any regrets. Except that one month of not working — that really came back and bit me in the ass when it mattered most.

But, really, no regrets? That’s quite an achievement. Let’s just hope that by the time my twenty-year immigrant anniversary post rolls around, I’ll be publishing it from Spain.