Chapter One
Today I’m starting something new on At Home Beyond Borders a column called The Secret Life of an Expat Wife. No tips, no checklists. Just real stories about my life between worlds.
Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the low hum of traffic, the echo of unfamiliar voices – the rhythm of a place that has never truly been mine. At least not in the way I once imagined “home” would feel. I’m sitting at my desk. A cup of tea, long gone cold. A blog that didn’t exist ten years ago.
Back then, I wouldn’t have known where to start. Who to ask. How to explain this feeling this strange mix of excitement and quiet loneliness that comes with building a life somewhere that doesn’t know you yet.
Maybe that’s why I’m here now.
Because I remember.
I found it by accident – buried somewhere between old documents and things I hadn’t looked at in years. A notebook I barely recognised as mine. The pages slightly worn, the handwriting rushed and uneven.
I opened it.
And suddenly, I was in my early twenties again, as if no time had passed.
“2 years Beijing… What does that even mean? Eating dogs? Wearing a face mask? Peking opera? Sometimes I really wonder what I’ve gotten myself into.”
I had to smile when I read that.
Not because it was wrong – but because it was so honest. So unfiltered. So completely unaware of what was actually coming.
Next to me sat a language course: “Chinese in 30 Days.” An audiobook about culture shock. A travel guide for China. I remember wondering whether any of them could really prepare me for what was waiting.
They couldn’t.
Some things you can only understand once you’re in the middle of them.
My first days in Beijing. I stood in front of the hotel, staring at an eight-lane road that felt wider than anything I had ever seen before.
Cars didn’t stop.
Not really.
Traffic lights existed but they felt more like a suggestion than a rule. Everything was moving. Loud, fast, chaotic. I stood there, waiting for a gap that never came. No pause. No clear “now you can go.” Just horns, engines and the quiet realisation that no one was going to stop for me.
So at some point, I just went.
Half running, half freezing. One step forward. Pause. Another step. A car passing just a little too close. More horns.
And then I was on the other side.
Completely fine. Slightly shocked. And strangely proud.
Today, I cross streets like that without even thinking. As if it was always normal. As if I had always known how to move through something that once felt impossible.
But not everything felt like that.
In those first two weeks, there were moments when it all felt like too much. Too unfamiliar. Too far away from everything I knew. I remember packing my suitcase. Once. And then again. Not in a dramatic way. Quietly. Almost matter-of-fact. As if going home was still an option I could return to at any moment. I told myself I could just leave. That maybe this wasn’t for me after all.
Those days felt heavy. Slower somehow. But I didn’t go.
I stayed.
And I’m not sure if it was courage or simply not knowing what else to do but looking back now, I think that was the moment something shifted.
Lately, I’ve been meeting more and more women who are just at the beginning of this journey. Different countries. Different stories. But always the same quiet undertone. They left something behind. They’re building something new. And somewhere in between, they’re trying to figure out who they are now.
At first, we talk about practical things apartments, paperwork, daily routines. But sooner or later, the conversation always shifts. To the feeling of being slightly out of place. To the invisible weight of starting over. To the question no one really says out loud:
“Did I make the right decision?”
I see myself in them. Not exactly as I was but close enough to remember. Close enough to know that this phase, this uncertainty, this in-between… it’s not a mistake. It’s part of it.
This is not a guide. I’m not here to tell you how to do it.
But I am here to tell you what it feels like. The quiet moments. The questions. The parts no travel guide will ever explain. Because maybe – maybe knowing that someone else has been through this side of the journey makes it just a little less lonely.
And maybe this, almost twenty years later, sitting at a desk in a city that once felt so far away, writing something that might reach someone who needs it this is my way of coming full circle.
If these feelings resonated with you – I created a whole journal around them. 60 prompts for expat women, from the first week abroad to the quiet moment you realise you’ve actually built something real. → The Expat Wife Journal on Etsy