Moving places, finding belonging

Most of us experience loneliness. It can be social, emotional or existential feeling or the combination of the three.

But there is a particular kind of loneliness that can come with living in another country.

You can have people around you, go to work, make friends and have a busy social life and still feel strangely disconnected.

You may speak the language, but you are also learning another one: humour, social cues, unwritten rules and everything that is understood without being said.

Sometimes you feel less like a participant and more like an observer, constantly trying to work out how things work.

And then there is what you have left behind: family, friends, familiar places and the people who knew you without you having to explain yourself.

Perhaps what we miss most is not a particular place, but the feeling of belonging... of being somewhere where things make sense. Where we know how to be.

Living between cultures can leave us feeling caught between worlds - not quite at home where we came from, and not yet fully at home where we are.

Perhaps creating a new home means finding places and people where, little by little, we can stop feeling like we have to translate ourselves...