In 2020, I unwittingly moved to Australia on what was supposed to be a temporary trip lasting a few months.
Instead of studying abroad for a semester and heading back to the Philly suburbs with some stories and a tan, I stayed for another six years.
Now, I’m a permanent resident eligible for citizenship. My life here is complete with Aussie friends, hobbies, beautiful weather, and Australianisms that no longer feel foreign to me.
I’ve built a life here, but it’s at the expense of the one I used to have. Somewhere between my “morning cuppa” and my “arvo” lunch, despite the beautiful sunny day and the background noise of familiar magpie squawks, it hits me like a gut punch: expat guilt.
What is expat guilt?
Studies have shown that migrating to a foreign country introduces multiple stressors that can negatively impact mental health. These include “a loss of cultural norms, religious customs, and social support systems, adjustment to a new culture, and changes in identity and concept of self.”
The first one to two years abroad is a lot like the early phase of a relationship, the honeymoon. But as they say, wherever you go, there you are. Eventually, the adrenaline rush of it all settles, and the logistical realities of your new home begin to set in.
The honeymoon phase eventually gives way to an anxiety that your absence makes you a bad person. You begin to ask yourself, what obligations do I have to my loved ones back home, and am I failing to live up to them?
Of course, you’re not there for anyone at home. You’re physically on the other side of the world. You couldn’t be less there if you tried. What people don’t talk about in all the excitement of moving abroad, beyond all the firsts and the funny cultural clashes, is the lingering grief you feel for your old life that can take the wind out of your sails even on your best days.
You’ll acclimate to your new country. But there are things you can’t get used to, and perhaps we shouldn’t. Most notably, the omission of your old friends and family, whom you promise you’ll stay in touch with by phone, video, text, or carrier pigeon.
And at first, you do. Eventually, though, life in opposite time zones means those calls get shorter. The stretches of time between each one get longer. You promise you’ll keep in touch, only for months to go by in the blink of an eye.
You can’t help but feel like it’s your fault. After all, you took too long to notice the distance and the gaps in your communication. You realize when it’s too late. You’ve made your bed, somewhat unconsciously, and now you have to lie in it.
The cognitive dissonance of having two homes
There is a creeping feeling that burdens me, knocking down my spirits whenever I’m having almost too good a day. I remember I need to call my parents, only to dread the constant reminder of their aging through a screen and the upcoming birthday demarcating a number so big it’s difficult to believe.
The years between your departure and your perpetual absence become a sobering reality check, until you fear time itself. I no longer wish to count the years that have gone by. How somehow, I got swooped up in a vortex where my dad is 70, and I’m nearing 30. How did nearly the entirety of my 20s take place so far away from the people who raised me?
I worry I’m a bad aunt because I have two nieces I’ve never met. A bad sister because I missed my brother’s wedding and the births of my sister’s children. A bad daughter because I’m depriving my parents of a real-life relationship with me in their middle age. A bad friend because there were people who needed me at their lowest, and I failed to show up.
All in all, I’ve missed engagements, weddings, births, and funerals. Sometimes, it feels like an entire cycle of life is happening on the other side of the world. I’m confronted by all the familial stories they have to fill me in on, and which I’m no longer part of.
I no longer have an accurate mental map of my hometown. Businesses have come and gone faster than I’ve been able to visit. I miss midnight Wawa runs, those grating Philly accents, and snowfall at Christmas. But I can do without these things.
What people can’t do without is their context: Mom and Dad, siblings, the house you grew up in, the community that shaped you. So, of course, you intend to come back. Only, flights are expensive, and the logistics of traveling across the world are easier said than done.
Acceptance, or something like it
A recent video essay I watched showed interviews of expats about the guilt of moving abroad. One girl said, “In a way, you’re never 100% happy, because you’re always missing something,” referring to the tug-of-war between the home in your heart and your geographic reality.
That’s exactly what it’s like. Moving abroad, you think you’re unlocking a new level of adventure and happiness, and perhaps you are, but it’s accompanied by a new level of dread, guilt, and shame that never really goes away.
Expat guilt is your mind’s way of contending with that cognitive dissonance: being happy where you are, but feeling guilty that you’re not where you feel you ought to be. Worst of all, in all my searches on forums, blogs, and video essays about expat guilt, those with firsthand experience say it never really goes away. You just make peace with being a perpetual ghost and a citizen of nowhere.
Read the full article here
