Life as an Expat: the good, the bad

and everything in-between

The occasional scroll on the long forgotten and yet to be obsolete Facebook feed has reminded me today that I have moved to the United Kingdom 8 years ago.

e i g h t y e a r s .

Where has this time gone? But equally, have I ever really lived in Italy? I feel like I am the same 23 year old, keen on moving to different countries and discovering the world at her own pace, and yet I recognise almost nothing about that girl that I see in that picture.

These last few years of my life have gone in blink of an eye, but I suppose that would have happened no matter the geographical location. It is more that I have lately realised with a heavy heart that I will never get those 8 years of my Italian life back. 8 years of seeing my sister growing up into a fine young woman, 8 years of watching my parents grow older and resembling more and more my grandparents, 8 years of sharing mundane moments with my school friends, instead of having to ‘pencil-in’ a random calendar date in the hope that none of our adult commitments will come in the way of our rushed minutes together.

I’m not sure why, but in my mind I was convinced that my presence in one country meant that life would stop and wait for me in the other place. Like a paused video game, standing by and ready to be resumed only when and if I had the chance to play. And when you go away for a brief period of time this feels quite true to reality. 3 weeks away have never been enough, for people to forget who you are, for a friend to grow grey hair, for a high rise to block your childhood house view, or a shop to close.. but multiply that by 139 ( which makes the numbers of week in 8 years) and all of these scenarios are more than possible. They are almost inevitable.

Whilst I am 90% accepting of it, 10% of me feels betrayed. Betrayed by time, for going so fast and yet so slow, making all of these years feel a lot to digest but small enough to condense in one core memory; betrayed by my country, for not allowing young people like me to find their own dimensions of happy, for clipping our wings of creativity, enterprise and authenticity; and most of all, betrayed by my own fear of missing out, for reminding me that I could be having a different future right now (for better or worse, I know) if I stayed in Italy.

The funny thing about my life in the UK is that it has happened by accident. I never planned or dreamed of living in the United Kingdom. I never really even planned on leaving Italy on a permanent basis. I knew I didn’t feel good about what my country had to offer, but really, when I decided to apply for MA, I just wanted to experience the chance of studying in the UK. So just like I did in the past with my many other travelling adventures, (more on said travels in a future Substack!) I told myself I was going to spend a year, at most two, in Manchester before returning home. With such short period in sight, and having done this fairly proficiently since I was 17, there was not one single brain cell preoccupied in wondering what a permanent life in the UK would be.

Alas, like in most stories that get told, things didn’t go to plan. The very blurry vision I had for my future, started to materialise in cup of teas and wet moorland fields. Before I knew I had dropped most of my thick Italian accent and started complaining about the weather like a true Brit. I has learnt that taking the piss is not as derogatory as it sounds and that I can hold my horses without owning any.

-What made YOU stay?- I get asked every time someone finds out I’m not from here and I have no relatives in the country either. The silly answers usually revolves around some witchcraft-type-energy that engulfs Manchester and its people, and once you get a taste of Mancunian life, you can never go back. (Aside being silly, there are a lot of not born and bred Mancunian that would testify to this themselves).

The not so silly, vulnerable true answer?

Continue reading below at your own risk, willing to go deeper than ever before, and yet remaining on such an ordinary level that you will finish reading this thinking - duhhh.

A lot of my travels in my life have been inspired by my curious nature, my passion for foreign languages and a very autonomous lifestyle. And whilst these have always been great attributes of my characters that I am very proud of, they have always been accompanied by a darker side of myself. A side in desperate search for belonging, one that felt a constant dull ache whilst going on about my day to day life, wondering if there was more out there than what I could see with my own two eyes, one that needed to find a purpose. To the 16-year-old me didn’t matter so much to go out clubbing and kissing boys. I wanted to understand why there were wars going on and how to stop racism. I was trying really hard to just be a kid, but I never could, because I was so lost within myself I was trying to find why I was born in the first place. Add an eating disorder to this quest for meaning and you have a recipe for disaster waiting to explode. So I moved. I parted, just like all heroes in all stories of self development do in their books, I left my land, my family, my friends, my boyfriend in search for meaning.

Okay. I know. In retrospect, I needed therapy. A lot of it. I still do! But I didn't know back then, and so this was my genuine attempt at finding a better life for myself.

So, to commemorate my 8 year anniversary on this island, I have decided to make an attempt at condensing some thoughts about my life in the UK.

1- I miss the sun, the weather, the good food, local produce and the simplicity of the Italian culture. You don’t see Italians smiling as much as when they are all gathered together at a table, eating some freshly made pasta and that to me is just so special. I couldn’t see that when I was growing up, because my fear of ‘gaining weight’ was occupying my entire brain space. It’s like my life back then was surrounded by a dark cloud that was impeding me to truly live in the moment, always worried about numbers on a scale or how I would burn off calories after eating. Living in the UK, a country with much larger mental health awareness, and being away from the environment in which I originally formed those thoughts, was unknowingly one of the best things I could have done for my eating disorder recovery.

2- I miss my family, I fear everyday something will happen to them whilst I am miles away, but life works in funny ways and there is nothing I can do to prevent that. Whilst spending time with them is nice, I know that I needed to separate myself from all of them in order for me to become the version of myself that I am today, as well the one that I will become. The physical distance has helped me put a lot of behaviours and family drama into perspective, and some of what I used to consider my own habits, were just replicas of what I learn from my parents and I am slowly (work-in-progress) coming into my own person more and more. I should add here that not everybody needs to move to a different country to experience this but, I guess, for me, it was very useful.

3- The language I used to start therapy and process things in these last eight years has been English. It wasn’t that much of a conscious choice back then, but I realised that it has massively helped express busy and complicated thoughts in a simple way. Not having a huge vocabulary at first, I was almost discerning from thoughts to concept just in the act of finding a word that could express how I was feeling and that has somehow fast-tracked my quest for calm. The Italian language is beautiful, but it is not the language in which, in the last 8 years, I have learnt how to set boundaries, learning how to tell the truth even when is uncomfortable or stop people pleasing. And so when I look in the mirror sometimes I see two Frans, an Italian and an English version that are trying their best to reconcile, but are yet quite far from one another.

4- I moved here for a prospect of a better future, a prospect of a better work-life balance. I sadly have to admit that the expat dream that I had was a bit of a fairy tale and no matter which way I look at this, a perfect balance will never be achieved. What you gain from living in the UK you lose by not living in Italy and vice-versa. But that is also okay. My ‘mother-in-law’ says something I treasure a lot: whatever choice you make, will be a good choice. Not because it will be easy, simple or good all the times but because you will make it good by investing energy and time and dedication to it.

And this exact thought brings me to my last consideration on this anniversary.

A lot of what I needed to go through internally, could have happened anywhere. When I firstly moved to England and still felt haunted by my internal demons, became a massive wake up call about my inner landscape. I learnt the biggest lesson of all, and that was that I was running away from myself more so than running away from external factors. And yet, when I realised this truth, I still had this instinct that England was the best place for me to continue working on myself. I could have gone home, took shelter in my mom’s arms. But I felt solid, more than ever, in my choice of rebuilding myself back and I knew I wanted to stay exactly where I was.

Trusting my guts has not always been an easy choice, especially when it has led me to difficult paths, but the difficulties I have encountered in choosing to live abroad and still encounter sometimes, is what has made me, me. I don’t have my life together, in the societal sense of ‘having it together’, and yet I am so proud of my past self for all of the adventures, tribulations and tough times I have experienced.

Living abroad, whether by choice or by accident, has been the greatest fit of my life without a doubt. Over the years, I have found a community of like-minded people, I have found climbing and pursued a career related to it. I have grown into a fine 30 year old woman, with the travel and life experiences of a 80 year old woman (so one of my uni mates once said?!) and the body of a curious 20 year old, still able to lots of learning and discovering and playing around. (Minus the constant aches and the 10 times longer warm ups for anything I do, but I hear there is no escape from that). I have met the person I am ready to share life with and build a future together.

Despite this, I know the path isn’t clear ahead of me, and as it comes with all life big decisions, I am uncertain of what the future will bring. I wonder how some of my dreams and expectations will match reality and too often I get antsy and impatient with myself and my partner for not jumping into everything head first. I often ask myself where would I be now if I returned to Italy, or if I never left in the first place, or wonder how it would be to return now, after so many years living in a different country.

And the answers to all of those internal questions is that I don’t know. And for a long time I felt like I had to dig really deep to find an answer so that I could placate my insatiable anxiety. But I reckon maybe it’s okay not to know. All in all, I am where I am, right now because of what I have done. The good, the bad and the in-between. And I will end up where I will end up, through more good, more bad and more in-between.