Posts Tagged ‘emigration’

I always told you that I won’t spoil you by only telling you about the good things of living far away from home. So today I will talk about one of the big downsides. Our good friends got married this weekend, my little niece will celebrate her 6th birthday next week and my best friend will become a father any day now. And guess what: I will miss all of it. A lot of our friends celebrated weddings this year, the arrivals of their firstborn or important birthdays. All of those are moments where it is really hard for me to live here.

I am very lucky to have good friends that won’t ever let me down or come anything between or friendship even if I live a few thousand miles away. But I can’t hust hop on the next flight to live through big moments with them and that will always stand between us. It just really hurts me sometimes how I just can’t be there and even more that this will never change. Being away from the dear people in your life probably is the biggest downside of moving away. And also the most hurtful one.

On days like these it takes a lot of energy to just pull through and don’t let yourself drown in sadness. Even if your friend’s lifes happen in another timezone and far far away, you have to keep building your own life in your new home. And that can’t be filled with sadness. In moments like these I always remind myself of why we moved here in the first place. Which is to pursue or dreams and life the dream we always had. And the easiest thing to do that is by enjoying the beauty of our home – which for the most part for me means go to the beach and visit places I love.

It took me a little time to get these sad feelings under control and not mistake them for thoughts of moving back to Germany. Now I more try to cherish them, because they show me how lucky I am to still have those really close people in Germany. People who love me for actually making my dream come true and will always be there when I come back – even if it’s just to visit.

I might have already told you that Flo and I still like to watch a TV show from Germany which deals with peoples emigrating to new countries all over the world. It’s not only interesting to us how other people feel while moving to the US. It is interesting to follow people through this journey in general. But: Most of the times it’s pretty sad to see. Because most of the people are too naive and too unprepared for this big step.

I again want to speak out to everyone that plans on moving in the near or general future: Please do not think that this is easy! It’s hard! Horribly hard! Not only, because you have to leave your well known life, your friends and also your family! But also, because moving to other countries doesn’t mean everything is going to be better! Indeed everything is going to be harder in the beginning! A lot harder! You will cry, you will be devasted, you might be disappoint and you will be challenged as you’ve never been before!

This exiciting journey might also end with a lot of resentment and disappointment for you! You always have to keep in mind that noone is waiting for you! Nothing will change, because of you! You will have to be the one that has to change!

I don’t want to scare anyone away from doing this! This is an amazing journey that brings you so much closer to who you really are and what is right for you in life! But please, don’t expect it to be easy! Otherwise you might be giving up faster than you ever thought you would!

Be prepared, be open and be realistic in your thinking! And you might and hopefully will be successfull and as happy in your new life as Flo and I are right now!

I actually waited for this to happen, but now that it’s really happening it creeps me out a bit. As the headline already says: My language barrier is finally beginning to crack. And with that I don’t mean that i had big problems speaking english before. The only problem was that I didn’t really feel comfortable doing it. I think it is absolutely normal to feel this way in the beginning and everyone who already moved to the US might now what I am talking about: The biggest problem you will have with the language is that you don’t feel comfortable speaking it. I always listen to myself while I talk, think oh my god I sound horrible and then begin to get insecure about it and talk crap.

But this week I had more than one moment where I kind of caught myself speaking english as if it were the most natural thing ever! I found myself in the middle of a conversation before I even realized that I wasn’t talking german, but english. And this feels amazing and strange at the same time! I really waited for that damn uncomfortable feeling to go away for a long time. But now that it begins to vanish I want to hold on to it for a bit longer.

As you may know Flo and I had a real easy start here in the US and so far everything worked out perfect. But there still are things that make me realize again and again that this is not our home country. The language was one part of that. And with every barrier falling down this whole emigration thing becomes more and more real! And that is kind of scary! Even if I still love being caught in this whole adventure!