Posts Tagged ‘emigration’

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!

I listened to a song on the radio this week and the lyrics had the headline I chose for this post in it. I think that there isn’t a saying that can possibly describe better what this whole immigration thing felt like for us – and still does! Moving to a foreign country (in which you never lived before) sure sounds beyond difficult. But aren’t the difficult things and experiences what makes life so exciting and worth living?

The whole moving to the US thing and living here was kind of easy for us. Everything worked out so well and I am still beyond thrilled about that. But there still are those little moments, which make it difficult. Even if everyone is friendly over here, you sometimes still feel left out. Because you are just not as open as the Americans are and that sometimes makes it hard to naturally connect with people (like you see it happening all the time). We may have no problem at all with the language, but still you are so tired in the evenings, because it’s so more challenging to work in a different language. And to switch back to german every time you wanna speak with your partner or your family.

After two months of living here I know for sure that this was the right path to take in life and that all the hard moments and all the tears were totally worth it. But what I like the most is that I wasn’t scared too much to take that step. That I challenged myself with a journey like that. And that I (so far) made it through without getting bruised too hard!

Yes, leaving your home and starting all over new is definitely difficult. But is it impossible? When you do it open-minded, well planned and with the right sense of intelligence, it absolutely isn’t!