I am sure I could not find a quote that more accurately sums up the effect that moving abroad has had on me.
Of course I am still me, but the girl that left England in 2000 seems like a stranger now, confined to history. I wouldn’t recognise that girl from pre-expat life if I bumped into her in the street today.
Of course I am still me, but my daily life has altered in more ways than I could even begin to count. Consequently who I am has changed too. In more ways than I can count.
Every day I communicate in language that is not my own. I wonder often if Dutch will ever naturally fall from my tongue as my mother tongue does.
I have been through culture shock and come out the other side, a little scathed, no permanent damage, but certainly changed.
A life abroad paved the way to a new career. One I could have only dreamed about a lifetime ago, living in my birth country.
Things that were once alien to me are today a ‘normal’ part of my daily life.
I sometimes find it hard to imagine there was a time before life in the Netherlands. Life before moving here seems so long ago, so hazy and blurred. So unreal almost.
My adopted country has changed me, changed how I see things, changed how I think and feel about things. It has changed my daily life.
It has changed me from the inside out. To the marrow of my bones.
Over to You
How have you been changed by moving abroad? Have a move overseas changed you to the “marrow of your bones”?
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