“somewhere between where I came from and where I’m going”

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I left home nearly a decade ago, carrying a kind of expat grief I didn’t have language for yet.
First stop: the capital. I told my mom it was just for my undergrad.
She wasn’t thrilled, but I promised I’d be back after graduating.
(Spoiler: I did not.)

The capital was exactly what happens when a small-town island girl gets dropped into big-city chaos.
Loud. Fast. Overwhelming. Somehow a little sexy.
I broke out everywhere, panicked a little, adapted fast.
I got good at reading the room, at becoming whatever it wanted.
Just enough of myself to blend. To be liked. To not stand out in the wrong ways.

I’d return home during the summers,
just long enough to remember, not long enough to reattach.
Present, but limited. I liked that rhythm.

And somehow my friends started using me as their get-out-of-jail-free card,
their permission slip to stop being perfect,
their excuse to be messy or reckless for however long I was home.
I became their liberator. I didn’t mind. Mostly.

Then came the “just a few years” in finance and investment banking.
Not the desk-job kind.
The sales kind, client dinners, shiny outfits, borrowed confidence.
I was zipping around in fancy cars, ordering cocktails I couldn’t pronounce, acting like I belonged there.

From the outside: impressive.
From the inside: mildly dissociating.

Then the UK for a Master’s.
New country, same pattern.
The likable international student.
The social chameleon who always felt a little mysterious, a little out of reach, even to herself.

I made real friends, real memories.
I loved being a little wild, a little lost, a little free.

After graduating, I made new promises to my mom.
“Just one more year.”
But I fought hard for a work visa and stayed long enough to build an actual life in London.
Almost a decade of it.

This became my polished expat era.
On paper, everything looked great.
In real life, I was still whispering English sentences under my breath before speaking.
By the time I found the words, the conversation had usually already moved on.

I job-hopped a lot.
Not the cool building-my-brand kind.
More like the still-don’t-know-where-I-fit kind.
I felt like a kid in oversized heels, cosplaying an adult.

Then came California.
Post pandemic.
Post near-death.
The glossy version of me started to peel.
The upgrades stopped sticking.
The Instagram updates faded.
So did the shine.

What surfaced instead was the quiet, unglamorous grief I had been shoving into a corner for years.

Because yes, I chose this life.
So I figured I didn’t get to complain.
This is what you wanted, remember? Be grateful. Keep going.

And honestly, I did.
Until the missed weddings and holidays piled up.
Until the babies I loved were suddenly in primary school.
Until the group chats went quiet and I realized I hadn’t been in a family photo in years.

Eventually, the check-ins stopped.

I felt like a ghost in the town that built me,
like everyone had moved on,
and maybe they should have.

No one tells you about this part.
This kind of grief isn’t cinematic.
It doesn’t arrive dramatically.
It doesn’t storm or demand.
It’s slow.
Polite.
Almost gentle in the way it erodes you.

It shows up when I drop a reference no one gets.
When I fumble in group settings, too focused on not sounding strange.
When I say something and realize it only makes sense in the place I left behind.

I used to chase difference like it was a birthright (Aquarius problems),
not realizing how much expat grief gathers in the quiet space between who you were and who you’re becoming.

“New” meant growth. Expansion. Proof I was doing life right.
And even though I often felt like a misfit in Asia, people still kind of got me.

I miss that kind of understanding,
the kind where one glance says everything.

But would it be the same now?
Do I even still have that connection,
or is that a memory too?

Don’t get me wrong, this is the life I chased.
And it has given me plenty.
New holidays. A chosen family. New ways to belong.

But some nights, when everything goes quiet, I wonder:
Did I choose this life, or did it choose me?
Maybe belonging isn’t a place at all, just a feeling I’m learning how to carry.