By the time I finish most of my lectures, it’s finally a reasonable hour to text my parents good morning.
It still feels strange. I’ve already gotten dressed, walked to class, listened to lectures, headed to the library, and started thinking about lunch. While across the ocean, their day is barely beginning. Sometimes I want to tell them something the moment it happens, then remember they might still be asleep. I used to measure a day partly by the people around me. Now I’m learning to live in one time zone while loving people in another.
I’m Costa Rican, grew up in Panama, and recently moved to Scotland. Before I came here, I expected to miss the obvious things: my family, my friends, patacones and tortillas. Which I definitely do.
What I didn’t expect was how much I’d miss the way all those things fit together.
At home, meals were rarely just a question of what to eat. I was used to sitting down with my family twice a day, talking while we ate, hearing what everyone had done and what they were about to do. A meal could stretch because someone had another story to tell. Here, I sometimes eat alone. I’ll make something, sit down, and realise there’s no conversation happening around the table. At first, the quiet made the distance feel enormous. But I’m beginning to like parts of it, too. There’s a calm in making dinner just for myself and deciding how I want to spend an evening. I can miss the noise of my family’s table and enjoy the quiet of my own room. Both feelings are true.
When I really need a piece of home, I FaceTime. Sometimes I call just to hear familiar voices, even if nobody has anything particularly important to say.
My grandmother has cooked with me over FaceTime, guiding me from her kitchen while I stand in mine. We’re separated by an ocean, but for a little while, we’re doing something we understand together. She can’t hand me an ingredient or taste what I’ve made, yet I can hear her voice telling me what to do next. It makes the distance feel less absolute.
Living here has also made me think about how much of myself lives in Spanish. Speaking English all day is exciting, but it can be tiring in a way I didn’t anticipate. In Spanish, I don’t have to work to sound like myself. I know the joke I’m making and exactly how I want to say it. In English, I occasionally lose the word halfway through a sentence. Then I remember it in Spanish, forget how to explain that word, and learn there’s a Scottish expression for the whole thing anyway. At that point, I’m just standing there with three possible vocabularies and no sentence.
I love that exchange, though. I’m picking up new words from my friends, and I get to teach them mine. Every explanation becomes a small way of showing each other where we come from.
There are more visible changes, of course. The supermarket shelves hold brands I don’t recognise. Cars drive on the left. The plug sockets are different. My outfits have changed with the weather — although I’m still working out what counts as enough layers.
I had a toastie on a friday night and went to a ceilidh. My friends keep waiting for me to buy gluten-free haggis; I suspect trying it has become a shared project at this point.
But the things I love about being here are no longer only new experiences I can report back home. They’re becoming ordinary parts of my day. I can take the bus without counting the stops and worrying that I’ll miss mine. I know which way to walk without opening Google Maps every few minutes. I recognise places that, when I arrived, looked like somewhere I could never find again. It’s a small thrill to realise I’ve stopped following directions and started knowing where I’m going.
I’ve felt this change before. Moving from Costa Rica to Panama took time, too. Now Panama is one of the places I mean when I say “home.” Remembering that helps me be patient with myself in Scotland. Familiarity is built through repetition: taking the same bus, hearing a friend use a word I’ve just learned, knowing how to get back after a long day.
I’m happier here with every day that passes. I still want to hear my family’s voices, eat my grandmother’s food, and sit at a crowded table speaking Spanish. I’m also discovering to thrive in the calm, the new friendships, and the feeling of finding my own way around. Perhaps home grows like that: you carry what you love with you, and little by little, you find more to love where you are.