She was born here. While she is technically also an American, to her, Australia is home.
It may seem strange that I am mentioning that fact, but I had not really given that much thought until this past week. You see, my ex-pat friend and her family have gone “home.” By home, I do not mean their house just a few minutes drive from ours. They flew back to California. For good. Like us, their family consists of an American mom and Aussie dad and their Australian born son. We met them on one of our very first nights after arriving in Melbourne back in 2008 and immediately clicked as friends.
They were in the same boat as we were. That American ex-pat existence where we could get together and celebrate Thanksgiving even if it was hot outside. There was a comfort in knowing that they were also thousands of miles from her family. It must be worth it then, right? Chasing the Australian dream? Even though as all of the kids grew we did not see them as often there was comfort just knowing that you could have coffee anytime. Hop in the car and hear that familiar accent sharing a sense of home.
What happens when those ex-pats sell pretty much all that they own and call it quits on Australia? I mean, although their reasons are not ours…neither for originally moving nor now for leaving, it stirs up the dust of doubt.
Upon hearing my American accent, I normally get asked two questions. First is “How long have you been here?” and that is followed by “Are you here for good?”
This month I am celebrating four years of calling Australia home.
And as far as those questions I get asked, the second answer is: “That is the current plan.”
I am starting the process to become an Australian citizen soon and that gives us freedom as a family to move quite easily. When we arrived, I needed to tell myself that this move was it. Despite the looming birth of our twins at the time, I just could not fathom more change. It was such a massive undertaking that required hard and fast commitment to see us through. Now we are settled and I love our home and life here, but I know that things can change. I accept change and we still see this as our “forever home.” However, if we need to go…if that is what is best for our family, then go we will. What I require now is more fluid than what got me through 2008.
Yesterday I checked Facebook and saw an update from our friends that they had arrived in California and that it was so great to be home. I took a deep shaky breath and felt happy for them.
March has become the time of year for memories of home and moving and contemplating the never fully healing part of an ex-pat’s heart.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
awww now i just have more reason to beg you to come back stateside, and maybe get you and Jules in New England…
and those images…edge80? damn gorgeous.
xxx
“Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away. Son, son, you have been mad and drunken, furious and wild, filled with hatred and despair, and all the dark confusions of the soul – but so have we. You found the earth too great for your one life, you found your brain and sinew smaller than the hunger and desire that fed on them – but it has been this way with all men. You have stumbled on in darkness, you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered, you have missed the way, but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth. And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered after fame and savored all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall touch us – we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that these things pass.”
― Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again
When I moved to central WI, for my first job, people always asked me if I was going home for the weekend. Well, “home”, with my parents was 200 miles away. I didn’t commute! I would them that home was Marshfield, not Waukesha. I didn’t have time to make that trip, every other weekend! Not sure why people couldn’t figure out that Central WI was now my home, not Waukesha! It’s only within the state of Wisconsin, though. I haven’t ever lived out of the US.
Well put, thank you.
I’m staring down the barrel of 8 years in China (with one visit back to Canada in that time) this year and I really hear what you’re saying. My wife is Chinese and our 17 month old son is Canadian, though he was born here (China doesn’t recognize or allow dual citizenship). We’ll find out on Monday if my wife’s visa was approved this time, so we can introduce my son to his Canadian family. It’s a real roller coaster, isn’t it?
I just started a series of posts on life in China on my blog, mostly about various aspects of culture shock. It’s at http://lived-inlife.blogspot.com/2012/03/so-youre-moving-to-china-sound-and-fury.html if you’re interested.
Totally understand the sentiment here… I’m never quite sure what is “home” for me either. Hoping life will make the decision for us!
PS good luck with your citizenship!! You’ll do great!! 
I am glad that you can see it as being partly a loss – this sounds a strange thing to say but it means that you understand that what you are experiencing is grief. Like any loss, the feelings come up again and again at certain times of the year or when reminded by other events, either positive or negative.
It’s a big thing to do – uproot from all you know and go live on the other side of the world. It’s one of those decisions that has weighed heavily on me personally over the years. J volunteered to come live here but I still feel a lot of guilt about the situation although clearly, he had a choice and he made it.
It’s not easy either way.
sending you some big friendly ex-pat hugs. i’ve just started the move to become a US citizen (will be dual British) and know exactly how you’re feeling xox
Interesting read. I moved from Italy to Nevada for a six months stint, which then got renewed, and then… it has been ten years now, and we’re still here (gosh, it sounds so strange…). I came here with my wife, and we left our children (at the time in their very early twenties), as well as everybody else in the families, parents, brothers, sisters and so on, at home. The good thing is that we have been going back to Italy at least a couple of times every year, and this of course eases up the connections; as well, with Skype and all the other tools connections have been getting easier and easier…
Still, we know that we eventually will have to go back for good. And you know what the problem is now? well, we are Italians of course, but after all these years in the States we have became slightly different… Even though we will never be just Americans. I think I can say that now we are somewhere in the middle…
It is so hard when your heart belongs to more than one place, when the people you love are scattered around the world. I really believe once you have tasted the life of an expat you can never truly ‘go home’ again. Part of your heart will always belong somewhere else. Part of mine is in the Green Mountains of Vermont, and little pieces are all over the world. I did ‘come home’ but it wont ever be the same. Partly because of location, and partly because of the people who are somewhere else, and partly because some of ‘my people, my heart, my home’ are gone forever. I remember the first time i came ‘home’ from my travels when i was 20, and feeling this overwhelming pain/ emotion that i could never really go home again, because i’d changed. That realisation was a shock. Now home is where my heart is, where my kid are. Have you read Thomas Wolfe? “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.” What a great writer, depressing though! Keep smiling, will see you soon!
Your words ring so true to me too, Rachel. Just like you, my kids were born in France. They are American but only know life in France. I used to get asked the questions if I was planning to stay in France for the long haul. Sometime after hitting the 6 year mark people stopped asking. I have said goodbye to a handful of friends as they have moved back “home”. It was hard to say good bye to them and every time someone left France, I’d question if I’d stay in France forever. After having kids here thing became more concrete in my mind that we would stay forever. I remember my first trip home to the midwest after Maximilien was born and I just didn’t know how to get around. Something as simple as going to Target was an ordeal. We didn’t have a car seat (I never use the car in Paris) and I needed the stroller, do I bring it in with me? I was the only one pushing a stroller in Target and shopping. I realized that I was a city mama and that my lifestyle was just that now. My notion of home shifted for me in that moment. With every visit back “home” after that I realized that my home was actually Paris and that I was just “home” visiting family. Things were sealed when I opened my tea house in 2008 and then the birth of Alixe in 2009. Now I can’t imagine packing up and moving back to the US right now. My kids are Parisian and the life that I can offer them here is wonderful. I love our life here right now. I miss my friends, of course, and am sad when friends I make move away. But I have learned this is integral part of being an ex-pat… life moves along for an ex-pat in so many different way. We are all here for many different reasons. Work, Love, School… I am going to start the process to get French Nationality. I am doing this mostly because it’s a big pain in the butt to get paper work done here and I don’t want to have to bother every ten years renewing my paperwork. And for reasons like moving around it makes it easier for all of us. if we move…
I am LOVING the discussion on this topic. Every time I open my heart about ex-pat life on my blog it really triggers wonderful comments. I need to explore this more. I think I keep it close to the vest for fear of having more questions than answers. The thing is, reading and hearing from everyone is such an amazing salve to the wounds I open up…
Keep talking about it. I remember in the first years of living in Paris and being alone and not knowing anyone this is how I met people by talking about this subject on my blog! There are so many of us in the same boat as you… it’s nice to be able to connect with people on a subject like being an expat even if we live half a world away from each other.
This is such a hard dilemma. I’ve been in Spain for nine years now–my husband is Spanish–and just yesterday I was talking with a good (also Spanish) friend here about how the knowledge that I’ll always feel divided eats me up inside (if I let it). It took me so long to feel settled here, to be able to think of this as “home”…and yet the Midwest is still home too, how could it not be? I grew up there, my parents & sister still live there, so when I go back everything is familiar. Yet I am different too…and there are important people in my life on both sides of the ocean at this point. And when I think about the kids that we’re trying to have…that’s when I really don’t know what to think. Do I want my kids to be American? Spanish? (do I even care?) Do I want to live wherever I choose and in exchange have them barely know my parents and siblings? Do I say goodbye to the life I’ve worked so hard to have here in order for them to see my parents & siblings frequently?….it’s such a personal choice, and I think we all have to figure out how to make it work for us. Good luck to you as you try…(and yes, it’s hard to see other ex-pats move back. I’ve had a lot of that too.).
I feel ya. We always look as our move here as “temporarily permanent”, at least for the next ten year and we’re closing on our 5 yr move-rsary. We do talk about moving back to the states eventually, but for the time being it’s great that the kids get to grow up with their grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins around. The huge family gatherings that we have out here just wouldn’t be possible in the US, since most everyone else lives around Asia. There have been days during the last few years when I’m walking around the house and think what it would be like when we do leave. I know that us and the kids will miss this house since we will have so many wonderful memories of our time here. But at the same time, I know in the back of my mind that this is not our final “home”. It’s kind of a weird feeling sometimes.
We intended to be in Australia (where my husband is from) for a couple of years and then move to Canada (where I’m from). A couple of years somehow became six, but moving to Canada was still the goal. Then I read an article about how ex-pats away from their home country more than five years have a difficult time readjusting. Apparently five years is the point at which the accumulated political, economic, social, and family changes make the re-entry significantly more difficult. After a couple of years ‘back home’ they tend to either give up on trying to re-create the life/networks they once had and effectively start over again, or move back to wherever they spent those five + years.
The article prompted me to evaluate what we actually have here, vs what we would actually have if we went to Canada (not in my ideal dreams, or anything based on our holidays). Realistically, to replicate what we have here in terms of our network alone would probably take us the better part of a decade to establish in Canada, plus everything else. We ultimately decided that here is home for good, and each time we have re-visited the topic since we come to the same conclusion. This hasn’t, however, stopped me from hankering for ‘back home’! It has, though, helped me to really appreciate how great our life here is, and has prompted me to try to make the most of the benefits that come from living in Melbourne. I figure if I’m going to be stuck half way around the world from the place I’d like to be, this city is as good an alternative as I could ever imagine.
But I hear you on the ‘never fully healing part of an ex-pat’s heart’. The toughest topic for me: things about my children’s childhood memories that will be in stark contrast to mine.
I’m an ex-pat on a small/big scale, small because my movement has always been within Europe, but big because I have been an ex-pat for as long as I can remember, before I had ever even heard the word “ex-pat”. I was born in England but my mum ran away to France with me and my 3 brothers when I was 9. I returned to the UK when I was 18, on my own. But by then, England didn’t feel like home anymore. I had been educated in French, my brothers were still in France and I had a new little brother and sister who were both French… So I was an ex-pat at home. And I never felt settled. 9 years ago, I upped sticks again, this time with my husband, and we moved to Brussels, Belgium. This is where both of my children were born. It’s the closest I’ve come to feeling “home” in over 25 years. But there are still aches. I ache to be closer to my brothers in France, for my children to be closer to their cousins, to have that sense of family and connection. And I ache to spend time in the country of my birth. I don’t even know why. I think England is just, somehow, in my blood. Inescapable. I don’t really know where home is, what it feels like or where my next home will be. Home is a place other people go to. And I don’t think I ever realised quite how sad that made me feel until I read your post and my eyes welled up.
Shouldn’t we all thank internet for making all those partings less painful
Lots of love, Rachel 
I found this such a moving and encouraging post Rachel, thank you for putting it into such perfect words. We are in a simular boat, as I watched you document your move to AU with Gemma on flickr, we made a huge move from the UK to the US (my husbands home land) when I was 28 weeks pregnant. I find that around this time of year I always long to be home and take my children around the familiar places I grew up. I wish I knew english people around here….I almost find it weird to hear people speak like me, I am so used to hearing the American accent now.
I also am here in the Bayside area and a California native. I have been living happily in Australia for so many years now that I am now confused at to which lingo belongs to which country. I have to stop and think about whether to use flip flops or thongs! I now have a new dilemma creeping up on me. It has been almost as many years living here in Oz, that I had lived in my home country. I moved here when I was 19 and as the years go by I get very nervous about that number. It’s only a number but it makes me feel like I am less than. Like I am not quite deserving to be an American anymore. Of course the fact that I am about to become an Australian Citizen today is also a source of guilt. As much as I love it here and am so very happy to be raising my healthy and happy children in this wonderful country and gorgeous bayside area, I do long for the days that I might one day live in California again. I would love my children to experience life as i did. They often ask if we can move there one day. For now that answer is sadly no. I guess i will have to wait and see what life brings in the years to come.
I so know what you mean about how you felt when you first moved. That’s how I’m feeling now. After such an effort to get here and the emotional turmoil of settling in I can’t think about going back!! It’s been just over a year now and I still can’t think about it. After going home for the holidays this past Christmas I felt a lot better about being here though. For me, in my situation this is the best place for my family….for now. That could all change of course!!
Thank you so much for sharing about this. It’s something I wonder about as a pretty fresh expat in Hamburg, Germany. Not totally fresh I guess since I’ve been here almost 2 years now. I’m getting married this summer and we don’t have any kids yet but plan (hope!) to have some soon. It’s always good to hear the experiences of other expats who’ve been in the game a bit longer and hearing about their experiences. People often ask me that too, if I could see myself living in Hamburg for life, and I love your answer “That is the current plan” and feel the exact same way. I have no idea what I’d do in the USA if I were to go back, and even if we did, we’d probably live in a different state due to my fiancé’s job, so it still wouldn’t even really be “home” to me. People also often ask me if I am getting German citizenship when I get married, to which I always reply, “No way!” because to do that, I’d have to give up my American citizenship and to me, that’s not an option. Even if I’m not necessarily planning on living there again, I can’t explain it, but it’s just a part of me I don’t want to give up.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your feelings on the topic.
It’s not easy being an expat, but there are lovely things about it too.
I totally underestand how you feel. After having left Brazil almost 17 yrs ago, lived in 3 different countries we are heading back to the US again… I don’t think there is one best place to live in, there will always be that feeling of I wish I was there…
We too are in the same predicament. I left my home town Melbourne in 2002 and moved to Perth where I met my husband. We left Perth for Paris in 2009 then moved to Kuala Lumpur in 2010. We had our first child in K.L in 2010 and are still here. I am yearning to go home, however my husband wants to travel the world for a few more years before our baby starts school which I understand. One of the hardest parts for me in living in an expat culture friends move on and then you need to continually get out and make new friends. Where as in Aus I would have a support network from who I could ring any time of day. I have just started reading this book, which I would reccommend if you are new to being an expat. http://mwfseekingbff.com/about/
I love your blog Rachel, I have been reading it for a few years.