Where are you from?
Where are you from?
“Where are you from? Var kommer du ifrån? De dónde eres? De onde você é?”
I’ve lived in three countries over the last six years and this is the number one question I always get (and have to learn how to answer rather quickly).
When I chose to leave South Africa back in 2017 I tried not to overthink it. I wanted adventure. My husband and I loved the sound of living in Europe and I, personally, just wanted to live - really live my life.
If I think about it, it was also an escape. I had just been diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune disease that really had me reassessing what it actually meant to live.
I also wanted to escape the pressure of being “the good daughter” and I didn’t know it at the time, but living abroad would shift my perspective on choices I had made in the past and never questioned.
Living away from my birth place has taught me life skills and lessons I would have taken a lifetime to learn if I remained nestled in the comfort of home.
Today, as I type this, I live in Madrid, Spain but I am not from here. I moved here with my husband and our little pekingese, Gino, just over a year ago. There’s an aliveness to this city that can sometimes feel energising but mostly unsettles me. Maybe it’s the fast pace, or the fact that I’m an early bird who eats an early dinner but to say the transition has been hard would be an understatement.
I’ve lived in Stockholm and Lisbon and although I’m not from either of these cities, it’s where I feel most at home.
In Sweden there’s a saying “there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing” - I lived into this during my time there and learned to be outside and actually enjoy the feeling of snowflakes on my skin and the (lack) of feeling in my legs when the South African in me didn’t layer enough!
In Portugal, it was all about my roots. My parents were born on a tiny Portuguese island called Madeira (please Google it right this second)! I felt so connected to my roots, even though I knew I wasn’t in my birth place I was surrounded by familiar language and mannerisms that would take me right back to moments with my family in South Africa.
Does it get easier?
“You must be a pro at this by now” - um, no!
The process never gets easier.
You are still wandering around the aisles at the grocery store in search of sugar in the coffee section but in Sweden, you’ll find it in the baking section. You are still struggling with connection in Madrid because unlike Stockholm, you don’t work at a company or an office where meeting people is easier - you work virtually, as a consultant and you spend a lot of your work-time solo. The soloproneur life is different!
If there's one lesson you keep learning when you move and uproot your life it’s this:
Make plans but do not get attached to outcomes.
Planning is great for the part of your brain that wants to hold onto certainty and control, but being attached to the outcomes of said plan is pointless.
I’ve learned what it really means to pivot and adapt because there are so many situations that come up that force you to.
Our moves have tested my marriage and made it the strongest it has ever been. Moving as a couple has meant we’ve shared very similar but also very different experiences. In Stockholm connection came easier for me, yet in Madrid it’s been the opposite. In both cities I have had to work through major setbacks in my health and been reminded how grateful I am for his support because the reality becomes very clear, it’s just him and I out here and in a lot of situations we are all we got. So, building a marriage that can adapt and pivot becomes the foundation for what it means to build a home again and again.
Learning to live with “different”
Difference = unsafe (to our brains)
The brain thrives when things stay the same. When it knows what to expect from the local grocer. When the language and cultural norms are familiar. I still feel a small hit of FOMO when I am walking my dog at 9pm and ready to head to bed and the abuelas are dressed up and ready to head out for dinner. It’s hard when what feels energising can also make your feel foreign.
The moment there's something different, the brain wants to go back to “normal” and make sense of all this difference.
Over time I have realised that sentences that start with any version of this: “At home it was never like this…” or “In Sweden, we’d be…” take me away from this lesson.
I’ve learned that adapting means learning to live with cultural norms and ways of being that are different and surrendering to the fact that some might never become my own, and that’s okay.
You learn that difference is okay. That difference can also contribute to belonging when you are not fighting it so much.
You learn to stay open and get curious.
Staying open to differences is the key to adapting to a new place - you have to stay open and curious to what another way of doing things might mean for you.
In Johannesburg I was never accustomed to water sports and have reflected on how my mom’s fear of drowning became my fear, too. In Stockholm, I was suddenly surrounded by water and a very short but bright and lively summer. Waking up early and cycling to the nearest lake (hello, fear of jumping into deep water) became a summer morning ritual and one I miss now that I live in Madrid.
Finding your people is hard
You know those friendships you hold onto because you’ve known each other for years? You keep inviting one another to parties but in reality you have nothing in common except for the fact that you share the same memories? I left people back home who were friends that felt like family but that’s changed with time and distance.
When you move, there is none of that. You are literally starting over.
You are no longer in the right place, at the right time - think playground or classroom.
You are at a WeWork, trying to make connections while celebrating the first day of spring by planting seedlings with strangers.
When you move the process of finding your people becomes more about finding a person. A person you can call a friend and connect with. I find myself no longer in search of quantity but rather quality connections. I realise that virtual connections are sometimes stronger, and that’s okay even though I long for moments where I can get together in a group and feel like I’ve found my people.
The process of finding your people is gradual and very intentional because it has to be. It requires effort and constantly evaluating what you want from a friendship and who you want to be as a friend.
Who am I?
Each move has come with an identity crisis - how much of my South African-Portuguese roots can I bring into this new place? How much do I even want to bring into this? What do I want to embrace from Swedish culture or Spanish culture?
It can feel like you are shedding parts of your skin and showing more parts of it, too. When my dry South African humour doesn’t quite land with one person, am I unconsciously covering a part of me to everyone else and how much of that contributes to me not finding my people or feeling like I belong.
Here’s when I learned that I had been hiding (rather unconsciously) a part of myself I really enjoy.
I travel back to Stockholm at least twice a year for work and on a recent trip I realised that Spain had brought out a part of me that I had chosen not to embrace while I lived in Sweden.
The part of me that loves speaking to strangers. Anyone else with me?
I found myself speaking to people at the bus stop or in the train and to my surprise, they actually spoke back to me. Wait, what? In Sweden?
I realised I had tucked away this part of myself because I thought this just wasn’t socially acceptable.
I’ve had to be mindful of who I choose to be in a new city and what these places bring out of me.
You get to choose who you want to be.
Where I am from is comfortable and where I feel most at ease but, it isn’t where I truly belong anymore.
Home has become a feeling rather than a place I was born.
Lately, I feel most at home when I feel truly at peace.
It’s the feeling I get when I walk along the coast of Estoril in Portugal. It’s what I feel when I land in Stockholm, Sweden and hear the word “hej”.
