The Stages Of Moving Overseas: An Anthology
Homesickness - the “initial” stage
One might think this stage happens immediately when you move overseas, but even once you have your bearings it can hit. Take, for example, you’ve been abroad for about 7 months and make a quick trip home, and that’s when:
You don’t realise how homesick you are until home is sitting on your lap and you’re stroking her warm, familiar fur and listening to her purrs - hoping she remembers you and forgives you for leaving her for so long.
You don’t realise how homesick you are until home is running up to give you the biggest hug and telling you how much they missed you while your heart feels somehow full and heavy at the same
time.
You don’t realise how homesick you are until you’re ugly crying as your Qantas flight is landing because the pilot wished you welcome home in that familiar Aussie accent.
At times like this, you refer to your handy list to try dispel these feelings:
How to help homesickness
- Bring some familiar snacks or comfort foods from home
- Call your loved ones
- Blend in some feelings of home - with your environment, habits, routines
- Explore your new surroundings
- Stay busy and remember why you’ve moved
I’d like to say its just at the start (but it does get better!) but also sometimes it hits when you’re not expecting it - like when you’re in the supermarket trying to figure out what’s the Japanese word for basil (its “bajiru バジル,” by the way).
Or the shock and horror of finding no beef mince which effectively eliminates the possibility of a comforting bowl of spagbol or tacos.
Adjustment, Excitement, and Exploration - the wild middle child
This is undoubtedly the best, if not the most financially dire stage.
Every weekend is an opportunity to find new and increasingly frivolous ways to spend money in the pursuit of making the most of it.
It’s full of those pinch-me moments where it just feels like you’re a tourist with an unlimited visa. The stories are posted, the locations are tagged, and your wannabe content creator videos are doing numbers.
You’ve somehow convinced yourself that eating out is actually cheaper than cooking so it totally makes sense to just go out for dinner every day.
Money is flowing like a tap and you’ve kicked off the safety and thrown it out the window.
No thoughts, just JAPAN
Acceptance/disillusionment - the reality
Imagine a positively scrumptious looking cake, decadent with icing and strawberries and whipped cream and on the outside, an absolute all consuming treat. But when you cut into the cake, the bulk of the cake is just a regular, ordinary sponge cake, nestled between the delicious layers of cream and strawberries.
That’s what moving overseas is like: on the outside, everything looks fun and exciting and delicious like a beautifully decorated cake, but on the inside it's mostly ordinary day to day living, with layers of exciting icing adventures in between. And it’s those addictive icing layers that keep you coming back for more.
No matter where you are, the day-to-day mundanity of paying bills, grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and rotting on TikTok after work are the same. We may have the idea that moving overseas is one big extended holiday, but the everyday realities and necessities of living are set as a wig with 300 spritzes of Got2B hairspray.
Written by Susan Craggs for Colin Magazine Edition 10