Going abroad is supposed to be the main character moment of your life. New country, new life, new you. You’re meant to be too busy traveling, meeting new friends, trying new food, and experiencing new things. You become wrapped up in your new reality that home starts to feel distant.
Except… plot twist: I still got FOMO.
While I was learning how to pronounce street names and living alone in a foreign country, life back home didn’t push the pause button when I left. When you see family and friends from a distance, that is when you realize how much you truly miss them.
Life abroad was exciting. I was distracted by newness — new routines, new faces, new versions of myself. But then, when it’s time to unwind and catch up on life back home, you see everything you’re missing.
And this feeling of FOMO isn’t because I wasn’t having fun or wanted to go home, but quite the opposite. I wanted to be in two places at once. I wanted to be traveling the world as a 22-year-old student experiencing Europe for the first time, but I also wanted to be the senior UCSB student with only one year left to check off my bucket list with my best friends.
It is especially difficult when you have both a physical and mental barrier between your two lives. Miles of ocean and different time zones, and you’re fighting with being present and still being connected.
Finding that connection to home became more complicated. It was hard not having my people abroad. I met the most incredible friends, explored amazing places, and did things I only dreamed of, but I was missing them. The ones who knew me better than anyone and did everything with me. And now, you watch as they live their lives back home without you.
And that’s the confusing part. You can be doing something objectively amazing and still feel left out. That strange feeling of missing out won’t simply disappear when you step into a new, exciting experience.
But that’s just another challenge of going abroad that nobody talks about.
Overcoming that feeling was an experiment. I had to stop telling myself that missing home meant I was being ungrateful. Two things can exist at once: I could love my life abroad and still yearn for my life back home.
But when the return came, and those four months were done in a blink, the feeling came back in an unexpected way. Abroad’s own kind of whiplash.
I expected everything to feel familiar, like stepping back into a life that had continued without me. I had changed, I knew that, but so had everyone else. Getting back into routine felt unnatural, and suddenly I questioned whether the version of myself I became abroad belonged here.
That’s where the imposter syndrome quietly crept in. I wondered if my growth was real or temporary. If I were trying to be who I was before, or if I became someone who didn’t fit into the mold of my old life.
But maybe abroad isn’t about choosing one life over another. Maybe it’s about learning how to live in the in-between. There is no choice to be made after returning home, because the truth is, your life abroad wasn’t a dream you, it was you.
Life is never stagnant, and the rollercoaster of emotions you will face when you leave for the unknown is endless, but isn’t that what makes it so interesting?
Now, as I am currently living in the “in-between,” I can say that every feeling you have when experiencing this amazing opportunity of going abroad is the world’s way of teaching you to become your authentic self.
Life back home didn’t pause, but I didn’t stand still either. And somewhere between the FOMO, the distance, the constant adjusting, and the return, I became someone new. That, in itself, made the experience worth it.