home

via

I've been thinking a lot about home lately, especially as Sam and I sometimes discuss where we'll move next, where we'd like to live, where we feel most at home.  It seems fitting that I wanted to write about this right now, when it's the expat diaries link-up here today.  It used to be really hard... I'd miss London when we left, for example, but as soon as we returned to London, it didn't feel quite like home, either.  Probably everyone who moves around feels like this.  I've lived in the UK since I was 17, so even though I wasn't born here, in many ways, it feels like home.  I went to university here, learned how to navigate adult life with things like bills and phones and paying council tax.  I know more about finding somewhere to live, buying food, and working in the UK than I do in the US.  I began my marriage here.  I can't really imagine living anywhere else with my husband, but chances are, we'll be in another country this time next year. 

For now, we'll enjoy this place and time in our life.  We'll probably be back for visits from time to time, no matter where we go next.  And when I think about moving somewhere in America, like Boston or NYC, I get excited thinking about building a new home there.  Or maybe somewhere that feels really foreign, like California.  I know I'll miss the UK, and all our friends and memories, which is part of the reason why I try to write them down.  It's nice to have a record to look back on.  I just wish that I had started earlier.  Mostly, however, the best lesson of marriage has been that I really do have a partner now.  Wherever we move to next, we'll move together.  Nowhere can really be that foreign (which I argue as I try to persuade Sam we should move somewhere like Hong Kong or Vienna or Stockholm) when you're not alone.