How to get used to life in a foreign country?!

Hi everyone! This time you gave me an idea for a blog. A lot of questions arrive to my inbox, some of them are truly difficult to answer, but at least I can write my opinions….

Many of you asked me, how I manage to be so positive and do I feel nostalgia?

I think it is impossible to move to a foreign country and not feel any negative emotions. The change is huge. The first day was the most depressing, we landed in the afternoon and then I realised there’s no return, some bridges were burned, and that we had to face reality. And reality seemed non-existent because my head was occupied with so many things and nothing looked realistic, all like a dream. The apartment looked terrible, the weather all grey clouds, a constant cold wind, my 2 and a half year old son was sick with a high temperature over 39 degrees and the first food we ordered after our flight at the hotel restaurant was terrible. “Oh, so what will we eat here?!” My daughter ate little, my son ate none. Fear literally overwhelmed me….

Things began to change after a few hours, actually that night, when I left the apartment to buy basic supplies. It was a warm summer evening with a dash of sea breeze. Then I started to realise what a beautiful neighbourhood we live in, something like Opatija, the coastal city near Rijeka at the Istrian peninsula in Croatia, but of course completely different. This feeling came through my mind, sea, summer evening, street lights, small, warm and cute colourful shops…

As my friend psychologist said once;

“All of us are missing something, so what…“

It’s so damn true…

So day after day, one is beautiful, the other is bad, the third is a fun, fourth is rainy, 29th sick, 75th between clouds, than a sense of a hard landing and again a sense of being lifted up and so on until four months were gone. I found myself asking, “Has it already been so long?!” “Why did I not like this place at first?!”

I’m still neither on ground nor flying in the sky, the sense of dreaming disappears only for a short time, I have no idea which direction to go, on which side of the road I will encounter a car but that does not mean that I’m unhappy. I think I do not have nostalgia. Sometimes I miss some people, yet those are the people I sometimes missed when they were only 10 minutes drive from me.
As my friend psychologist said once, “All of us are missing something, so what…” It’s so damn true….

I think we should get an awareness of the words “nostalgia” and “homesickness“. Are you really missing your country or simply idealizing the past? Would you ever go abroad if you had such a nice time at home?
I cleared such things with myself, avoiding excessive thinking about the people and places I have left behind, and I try to live in today, find happiness in a morning coffee, in music, writing this blog, answering questions like “Is it grass really such a light shade of green in Ireland?”

All this makes me happy. Sometimes I have way too many questions, for some I don’t have the answers and I like to have answers for everything.

Everything is in our perception of life. When I have a depressive ugly day, I don’t blog. Then I fight or keep quiet. I’m not always positive, but I don’t want these emotions shared with others because they are nothing constructive. Who wants to know how today I had the most boring day at work and how I’m nervous?! Anybody?! No?! That’s what I thought….

I’m not checking (yet) in the Polish stores for spices and bacon, etc. from Croatia, the only thing without which I can’t cope is the baby cream that I use for my face and I have to thank Vesna who I never met in my life but recently mailed me 2 packs and some snacks for kids. Vesna, you’re wonderful, thanks. We practise cooking at home, already used to different tastes like mayonnaise almost without eggs, the meat is great, milk and yoghurts are miles better than in Zagreb….

Leaving your home country is similar to a major relationship breakup, when you break up, you feel that you will never forget it or get over it, even after you meet a better love, still sometimes in your thoughts you are trying to recover those positive sweet moments, until one day you realise how lucky you are, that it all turned out just the way it has.

My advice to people who have asked the question of how to cope with change:

If it was worth it, it would last…

Accept the new environment and your emotions bravely, everyone needs time for themselves to forget the things and the people that once were the centre of their lives. Ensure to make room for some new moments and new people, new victories….

Lift up, put a smile on your face and bravely step into a new world because if you aren’t brave, you would stay on mother’s soup until your sixties and certainly would not have moved to another country.

Good luck, and enjoy the journey!

Kisses,

Ana