My Life Part I and My Life Part II

I try and journal every day using a topics du jour system (a great tip I picked up in "Journal to the Self" by Kathleen Adams - (click on image for more information)). One of my recurring monthly topics is expat life. Inspired by a quote from Nelson Mandela, I started scribbling my thoughts.

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."

These wise words stirred up a feeling I have had since the summer when I took a trip down memory lane and toured round the places I used to live and the schools I once attended. I have a past and a present. And they don't correlate.

I can't reconcile my British past with my expat present. When I moved to the Netherlands it was like My Life Part II starting. I don't have daily contact with anyone that shared in My Life Part I and nobody from My Life Part I knows what it is like to be living out My Life Part II. And the other way round. I have regular contact with family and friends from England but they can't know what life in the Netherlands is really like. My Dutch family and friends have no connection to my past.

At certain times, like the trip down memory lane a few months ago, My Life Part I and My Life Part II collide. They are so different it is hard to comprehend how the two parts make up the same life. They are world's apart. Or countries apart in any case. It's like a jigsaw puzzle that should fit together but doesn't.

When I am in England I have serious doubts about whether I could go back and live permanently in my birth country. I have changed. It's no longer home. When I first moved to the Netherlands every trip back to England was heart wrenching. I didn't want to get on the return flight back to Schiphol. I had to force myself to go back and leave my home.

A British Passport doesn't mean Britain is home
Photo: Phillip Bramble

Now when we are making the return trip from England to the Netherlands I know I am coming home. A Dutch border agent summed it up seven years ago when he checked my passport, looked up at me, smiled and said "Welkom thuis." Welcome home indeed.

I was actually aware of the transition as it happened - the place I called home moving from England to the Netherlands right before my eyes. We were driving on the M25 back to the ferry terminal and instead of feeling laden with sadness at leaving my family I had the consolation that at least we were heading home. And no matter where you've been it's always nice to go home right? Back to My Life Part II.

How do you piece together your life before moving abroad and your expat life now?