Staying Connected Home Without Losing Your New Life
The relationship with your home country that you maintain while building a life abroad is one of the most complex negotiations that international living requires.
My Sunday morning video calls with my parents started during the pandemic and continued after. The seven-hour time difference means that their Sunday evening is my Sunday morning, and the ritual of the weekly call has become as structural to my week as any professional commitment.
The staying connected that works is the staying connected that does not prevent arrival. The expat who is always on video calls with home is not present in the life they are building. The expat who never calls home is not maintaining the relationships that will matter when the novelty of abroad fades.
The technology that makes staying connected possible has also made the intensity of connection more variable. The family group chat that generates thousands of messages monthly. The individual threads with close friends that maintain intimacy through daily small updates. The occasional long video call that replaces the sitting-around-talking session.
The expat who returns home for visits discovers that home has continued to change without them. The friends who have deepened their careers and their families. The city that has developed new neighborhoods and lost familiar landmarks. The cultural references that have shifted while they were not watching.
The visits that work best are the visits that accept this changed reality rather than trying to pretend otherwise. The friends who have grown in directions you did not anticipate. The family dynamics that have evolved in your absence. The city that is partly new.
The integration that eventually emerges is neither the full connection to home that you had before nor the full integration into the new place. It is something new — a double belonging that does not quite fit either category. The relationships that sustain you come from both places.