We've been expats in the UAE for just a little over 5 years now. I remember the excitement of moving here - new house, new furniture, new car, new environment - a whole new experience! It was both strange and familiar at the same time. By now, we know about all there is to know about this place and we're the ones helping others to settle in an familiarize themselves with the surroundings, but...
the thing about being an expat is...
Sooner or later, you have to go!
As an expat, you learn to be away form loved ones and as hard as that sounds, it's pretty true. You go through phases of adjusting, longing and then you switch off. A phone call home once a day becomes a phone call home once a week, and as the years go by, you only phone when you start feeling bad or receive the random Whatsapp message saying: "Hello, are you guys still alive?"
Everything is all fun and games at first!
On your off weekends, you're like a tourist, exploring everything and anything! If you get bored, you find somewhere to go and new places to see but after a while, there is nothing left.
You get so caught up in your own life that the thought of "home" fades away. Everything you do is done according to your own liking and your own rules. There is no one who will make decisions for you and learn how to survive, alone. You do what you've got to do and basically fall into a routine of wake, work, eat, sleep. Like a zombie, an oxygen thief. You realize that in this foreign country, you are no longer a tourist, neither are you a citizen. You are here to do a job, have no say and sooner or later, you'll have to go "home".
Home where?
Is "home" still "home"?
You come to realize, that you're lost!
A house isn't a home!
"Here" isn't home and "there" isn't home!
You'll have to start all over again to build a home.
People say "Once an expat, always an expat"...and I think it's the truth!
Can one really just settle back down "home" when you now know that the world out there has so much more to offer?
Does being an expat make us see life differently?
You are now stuck between here and there
I can't decide!
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