#32. Why We Romanticize Home When Living Abroad- Homesickness, Culture Shock & Expat Life in the USA

Do you ever wonder why homesickness hits so hard when you’re living abroad—even for things you never cared about back home?

In this episode of Starting Over in the USA, Yolanda Reshemah explores the hidden truth behind homesickness for expat women. From longing for food you rarely ate to missing traditions you barely participated in, this episode dives deep into the emotional side of expat life in the USA. You’ll learn how culture shock and mental health challenges can make us romanticize the past and idealize home, even when we chose to relocate for better opportunities.

• Understand why nostalgia often distorts our memories and makes cultural adjustment harder.
• Gain practical tools to stay grounded and present while navigating homesickness abroad.
• Learn how to reclaim your story so that moving abroad becomes about growth—not regret

To share your own migration story or feedback email  [e-mail] 

This compelling podcast dives into Expat and immigrant women (and men) stories. Those who immigrate to the USA, tackling the struggles of homesickness, identity crisis, and culture shock in the USA while adjusting to expat life and navigating cultural differences. Through conversations on starting over, reinventing yourself, and finding purpose, it highlights success stories of women's tenacity, and the resilience of expats in the USA. It offers insights into bicultural identity, language barriers, and the challenges of living overseas. The podcast emphasizes the importance of a strong support system and wellbeing for women in pursuit of the American dream.

https://www.instagram.com/theplaces_wecallhome

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Today my friend.
I want us to dig into somethingtender and often unspoken about.
It is the myth of the perfectpast.
Welcome to starting over in theUSA, the Expat Woman's Guide to
overcoming homesickness,embracing cultural differences,
and creating a new home awayfrom home.

(00:22):
On this podcast, we talk aboutleaving behind the familiar, you
know, the pangs of homesicknessand culture shock to the
journeys of reinventingyourself.
I'm Yolanda Reshemah.
And after relocating six times,I know firsthand what it's like
to start from scratch, feelinglike both a foreign child and a

(00:42):
foreign adult in a new world.
We are going deeper into whathappens when we romanticize the
country we left.
Especially when things get hardin the place we now call home.
You'll hear stories andreflections and gentle tools to
help you feel grounded whennostalgia starts to feel like

(01:03):
the truth.
Let's look at what we miss andwhat we forgot.
I've come to realize that whenyou are homesick, you don't just
miss home.
We somehow, for some reasonstart idealizing it.
I couldn't understand why any ofus would do that, we spend our

(01:24):
times doing the research.
We got the passport and thevisas and so on.
We had compelling reasons tomove so convinced were we that
we packed our sofas, the cat andthe kids I'm one of those
people, as you know by now.
About a year or so after movingto the us I caught myself

(01:44):
craving typical British thingslike fish and chips, things I
never really bothered about whenI was there.
I was longing for foggy nightsin the pub with log fires.
I hardly ever went to a pub.
Why was I missing that?
On foggy nights, I stayed athome.

(02:07):
Pies and Sunday roast, Englishbreakfast, all this stuff that I
just did not eat when I wasthere.
It's not that those things werenot real, it's not that they
weren't a part of my life, it'sjust that they were not the
whole story.

(02:27):
But I think I was long afterthem because they represented
the culture and the vibrancythat came along with them, the
smells, the sounds, and thetopics of discussions that I had
with good friends sitting in thebeer garden I completely forgot
about the longing for perpetualsunshine on those gray winter

(02:48):
days.
Forgot that I felt discomfort, Iwanted to find what I could
possibly do.
What are the skills I coulddevelop?
I needed to discover aspects ofmyself that just were not going
to happen whilst I was there.
All of those things brought intomy life and the limitations I

(03:11):
felt.
I'm realizing now that nostalgiacan be so comforting, but it can
also be terribly misleading forme it painted the past in soft
light and made the present feelmore harsh by comparison, I
realized that that was a kind ofmyth the stories we tell

(03:34):
ourselves about what home wasreally like, obliterating from
our minds, the things that wedisliked that caused us to move
in the first place.
That is really powerful.
I can't help but ask myself, whywould you do that?
Why do we idealize?

(03:56):
I think it must be a way ofcoping.
I'd love to know what you think.
I'm wondering if it's our mindsway of saying.
I want that security again.
I think that's what it was forme.
Could it be that?
When we are overwhelmed bylanguage or loneliness and the

(04:17):
stuff is all unfamiliar, wehaven't quite made the
connections with the peoplewithin the timeline we had given
ourselves, we immediately runback to home, run back to what's
familiar and comforting, and wethink about it in the best way
possible.
It was perfect.
But here's the truth.

(04:39):
I feel like It's just part ofthe process, purely and simply.
But could we actually do withoutromanticizing?
I'm not sure.
It may be inevitable when ourhome, away from home just starts
feeling difficult.
How do we come back to thepresent?

(05:04):
I ended up romanticizing lifeback in England especially
during those days of pregnancy.
Being a mom without my family,my support network, my culture,
and everything that wouldotherwise help me and protect me
and keep me sane.
Those days when I had to reallywork hard to occupy myself

(05:27):
mentally.
looking back now.
I realized that I had to putsome structures in place like
take baby for a five mile walk,that's when I was able to think
things through, to give myselfenough space and quiet to
identify what was reallytroubling me.
I realized that I was bored.

(05:49):
I realized that I missed myfamily, that I was lonely and I
missed the taste and the soundsof the cultures that I grew up
in.
I decided that I was gonna starttaking a course I joined some
moms groups.
But it's also on these walksthat I identified what wasn't

(06:12):
working for me once I made aplan and I executed it.
Some of those moms group, wasnot the right fit so I decided
to work as a consultant.
My brain cells were working.
So I'm encouraging you to askyourself my expat friend, are
you in a position now as I wasidealizing all the stuff about

(06:36):
home simply because you arefinding and building your
community, it's a place of beinguncomfortable.
If you give in to idealizing,you could end up wanting to
abandon this journey you are on.
How do we come back to ourselveswhen the past feels like a warm

(07:00):
blanket and for me reclaimingyour story.
How do we reclaim our story?

Ask yourself (07:06):
what am I fantasizing about that wasn't
actually nourishing?
What's quietly beautiful aboutwhere I am now?
I used to fantasize about work,the thrill of it, the steep
learning curve.
Stiletto heels.
Lovely suits.

(07:27):
I missed that.
I but then I'd remember thestressful bits, the long train
journeys, train strikes, andpacked trains with viruses
caressing my face, beingdreadfully sick every single
year.
I didn't realize that I shouldhave been navigating my thoughts

(07:47):
to what's quiet and beautifulabout where I am right now.
Eventually I started beinggrateful for the things around
me.
But it took a while.
I had to really talk myself intoit.
I started realizing, ah, mygosh, I can feel the sun on my
back.
I can hear the waves lappingagainst the stones the present

(08:09):
isn't perfect, but it is realit's where life is taking shape.
I'm just relieved and thankfulthat I was able to talk myself
out of it by going for walks anddeciding to enjoy what surround
me.
Otherwise I would have ended upabandoning this plan, and would

(08:32):
have missed everything that I'mexperiencing now.
I would've missed seeing thequails roaming around my garden,
making a mess of it.
The people that are in my lifenow, the things that I'm doing
now, the steep learning curve ofthis podcast, I would've missed
that.
So it's important for us toremember that leaving our place,
we didn't just actually leave,but there's also a story of

(08:56):
arriving though we are goingthrough really difficult and
challenging times, we are notjust surviving even if we are
right now, it won't always belike that.
It's the process of creatingsomething new, the vision we had
that made us leave in the firstplace.
I am reminding myself, andencouraging you to write down

(09:19):
what excites you about now, ifyour spot right now is so hard,
write down the things thatexcites you.
Not everything is going to benegative.
If you search for the excitingand search for the positive, you
will find them.
The relationships you're forminghow those relationships speak
into your life, my life, theopportunities that they unfold.

(09:46):
Every time you and I choose tobe present, to deal with the
fantasy, choosing reality overthat, that's reclaiming the
story, the story of why I move,the story of why you move.
We are still living on what'spossible, even with the

(10:10):
challenges right now.
Stay curious, stay grounded.
Enjoy your day and I'll see youon the next episode.