I have recently moved back to my native country after having lived in Melbourne for years. I feel very ambiguous about my decision. It doesn’t feel right. My gut is telling me I should have never left. My rational mind is telling me I need to be close to family. I don’t know which one I should be listening to.
I’m writing this blog post as a way to document all the things that are going through my mind. I don’t know if it’s going to be useful to anyone else, but I don’t want to forget about it. I want to look back on this time and be able to connect with how I felt.
I know I’m lucky. These days millions of Ukrainians flee their homes. They have to pack their bags and board packed trains to unknown futures. Losing pets and friends. People move under horrible circumstances all the time. I’m lucky. I will document this process, fully aware of just how much. I have a home country, a family to return to. I’m grateful for that.
No one forced me to move. It was premeditated. I willingly boarded the plane and let it take me away. So if this is my rational decision, why is it so bloody hard? I loved Melbourne. I can’t explain what it is that makes me love it so much. It took me fours years of precarious work conditions and crippling self-doubt to find my footing there. It’s on the other side of the planet and I only made very few friends. The UV is murderous.
Maybe the self-development journey is what created my bond to the place. Melbourne is where I’ve lived most of my adult life. It’s where I’ve tested my strength and formed my identity.
And it is beautiful. An isolated society at the end of the world, surrounded by fairy-tale nature and clear skies, it’s a space for migrants to start over (33% of Australians were born abroad). How can you not feel at home in a place like that? How could my heart not break having to leave that? It’s when I stop for a minute, take a break from applying for jobs, wait for the train, that I feel just how much I miss Melbourne. It announces its presence as a twist in the stomach before I even remember why I’m sad. I moved away despite every fiber in my body screaming not to.
If unbearable feelings are reliable indicators of poor decisions then I have made a terrible mistake. But plenty of good paths have started out uncomfortable. It's hard to differentiate fear and discomfort from gut feelings that need to be listened to.
I wonder why it matters anyway, where I live. I’m still the same person and I can have the same kind of life anywhere, right? Am I so shallow that I need the warm weather, the beauty of the city to be happy? Even multiculturalism strikes me now as an excuse. A distraction from what’s really happening. I imagine myself returning in one year or five years to Melbourne, but I know in my heart it just wouldn’t be the same. Maybe it is not about the place but about the time in my life, the story I was telling myself about it. I miss the idea of who I was there. I was the person who was living at the end of the world. I was on an adventure.
I think going ‘home’ to your birth country is always going to feel like settling and regressing into childhood. I’m a woman in my thirties now. My twenties are over. The fairy tale is over. I’m just a person sitting in my parents’ house, with no money and nothing but the present moment. No more changes to come. Just the status quo.
Existing at the same time, somehow, is this sense of lost innocence. Denmark is harsher than Melbourne. The light is grey and muted. It’s freezing cold. There’s a war in our backyard. Some Melbourne escapism is tempting at this point.
I see Denmark from the outside now. It doesn’t feel like home. It feels like a parallel universe that looks like my childhood home but is different. It’s so quiet here. Busy, but quiet. The cars seem muffled. The sounds of the pedestrian crossings are almost inaudible. People sit inside over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee but they speak in subdued voices that can’t be heard through the glass. I’m relieved that I feel like a stranger. It’s Melbourne that’s my home, not this strange place! It scares me, the possibility that maybe one day I’ll return to Melbourne and have that feeling of not belonging. I don’t ever want to feel that.
Moving has been gut-wrenching. I still can’t really believe it. Was it worth it? I’m not sure yet. Right now it feels like it isn’t, but maybe there’s still something to learn. I guess I can only wait and see.
