EP 31 — Does Moving Abroad Change Who You Are?

Transcript

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Welcome to Almost Local. I'm Maria, your host, and today I'm podcasting from Auckland, New Zealand, as usually. Before we begin, I want to share something I'm introducing to Almost Local. Over the past few years, after so many conversations with people living between cultures, I've noticed something. Again and again, the same reflections keep emerging. They are not rules. They are not advice. They are simply observations about what it means to build a life between countries, cultures, and yes, identities. I'm calling them Almost Local truths, small truths that might help us better understand ourselves and each other. So today's Almost Local truth is: moving abroad changes more than your address. It changes the tiny habits that quietly remind you who you are And this month marks one year since we moved back to New Zealand. I say back because we had lived here before. Part of me expected coming back would feel easy, almost like returning to the life we had left. Of course, that never happens, and that didn't happen. New Zealand had changed, I had changed, and our family also had changed. The life we were returning to no longer existed exactly as it was, right? For the first few months, I felt quietly unsettled. Not dramatically, just a feeling that I had to rebuild myself again. That feeling of discomfort. When we talk about culture shock, we usually talk about practical things. Those practical things could be finding a house, finding a job, um, finding a doctor, the, navigating the, the healthcare system, all the paperwork, the visas, the residencies, um, if you need to deal with that, cost of living, those things, of course, matter. You definitely need to have a roof over your head, and you need money to pay the bills, and you need health, of course. But I think there is another kind of culture shock, and that's the one we usually talk about a lot here in Almost Local, and those, uh, things are the invisible ones, the ones that quietly change your identity. I've been reading lately, um, a great book that I, that recommend, um, Atomic Habits by James Clear, and one idea really stay with me, which is our identity emerges from our habits If you have the power to change your beliefs about yourself, you can also change your identity because your identity is not set in stone. You have a choice in every moment. You can choose the identity you want to reinforce today with the habits you choose today. That's s- that's a little quote from the book. "The things we repeat become the evidence of who we believe we are," according to James Clear. One habit for me was visiting the public library every week when we first lived in New Zealand. For me, that was such a magical discovery, knowing that the library here where we live in our neighborhood was just available for us to grab any books we wanted from any topic, fiction, nonfiction, whatever you could think of. For me, it was, um, glorious, I would say. I would borrow piles of books, and it became part of my identity. I wasn't just borrowing books, I was reinforcing that I was someone who stayed curious. I mean, of course, I didn't know that. I know now. When we moved to the Netherlands, what did I do? One of the first things that I wanted to do was join the local library. Yes, of course I was really excited, and I had my library card, and I headed to the library, the one we had near our house. But almost, of course, all the books were in Dutch, you can imagine. I remember walking home really sad. It wasn't really about the books. Now I know. It felt like I'd lost a small part of myself. Eventually, I found other ways to keep that identity alive. At the Hungry Mind, at the international community, parents exchanged English books. I also discovered the little street libraries scattered around neighborhoods. And of course, the main library, uh, in The Hague has a big section of English books. I realized something important. I hadn't lost the identity of being a reader. I'd only lost one way of expressing it. At the same time, the Netherlands gave me something completely new: the bicycle. Cycling wasn't just a transport here. It was part of everyday life. Without really noticing, it became part of my identity, too. I loved riding everywhere. So when we moved back to Auckland, one of the first things I did was buy an e-bike. I wanted to keep that part of myself. For a while, I cycled to my co-working space. But what happened is, gradually, I returned to driving, not because I stopped loving cycling. The context was different, and the roads, the distances, the rhythm of the city, and... Well, it just didn't work. I still have the e-bike anyway, um, but it's not part of my daily life, and that made me realize something else. Some habits travel with us, some need to be reinvented, and some belong to a particular place and become a gift that place leaves behind in us. Looking back at this first year in New Zealand, I don't think what helped me settle was simply time. It never is. I mean, of course, time helps, but it was mostly repetition: returning to the library, going to the gym, yoga, morning coffee with the yoga friends, recording this podcast, building Almost Local, the community. Little by little, those habits became evidence that I was building this new chapter. Maybe identity isn't something we either keep or lose. Maybe, like the book Atomic Habits say, identity is not set in stone, and I think that's great news, right? Maybe it's something we can continuously edit. Some parts stay, some evolve, and some new ones appear because another culture introduces us to a version of ourselves we never knew existed. For example, the bicycle. Living abroad isn't only about adapting to another culture, it's also about collecting pieces of yourself from from different places. Maybe that's why moving abroad changes us forever. Not because we leave ourselves behind, but because every country leaves something behind in us. So if you've recently moved or moved back, perhaps don't ask only, "How do I settle in?" Maybe also you can ask, "What habits help me feel like myself? What tiny routines can I rebuild? What new ones might this place invite me to discover?" Because belonging rarely arrives all at once. Sometimes it arrives quietly, one ordinary habit at a time. And perhaps that's what becoming almost local really means. Not choosing between who you were and who you are becoming, but allowing both to exist at the same time. Today's almost local truth, I was saying at the beginning, moving abroad changes more than your address. It changes the habits that shape your identity. Some you'll rebuild, some you'll reinvent, and some will become beautiful reminders of a place that will always be part of who you are I'm Maria, and this is Almost Local, stories that bring us closer. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and now I'm off to my morning coffee. Until the next episode