Depictions of expat life are often glamour-washed. Influencers harping on about why people should try it out conveniently don’t touch on the less pleasurable parts of exploring who and what you are in another country. Nothing can prepare you for how living abroad will fundamentally alter who you are, much less a 30 second TikTok video about croissants in Paris or gelato in Rome.
I’ve lived in Croatia for more than a decade now. I’ve no idea where the time went. I’ve also got no
idea who I was before I came here.
Here are 10 ways being an expat changed me in 10 years.
I had absolutely no idea what stress was My idea of stress before experimenting with life as an expat was naive to say the least. The bureaucracy involved in getting things set up administratively in another country is a daunting, time consuming and burdensome task anywhere. Couple that with Croatia’s masochistic love of red tape and the faint echoes of a former regime dictating bureaucratic processes and you’ve got a nightmare on your hands.
Things run at a snail’s pace, you need documents you’ve never even heard of, and you likely won’t be greeted with a smile.
Arming yourself with bucket-loads of patience is something that is learned with time as an expat, and eventually, each completed tax brings enormous satisfaction.
Picking your battles is essential
At some point or another, every expat (wherever they may be) will begin automatically comparing how things are in that country compared to your country. It’s natural, and we all tend to start doing it when the shine begins wearing off.
Comparison is the thief of joy, however, and after a rather confusing mental balancing act of two countries resolves itself in your mind, you’ll learn to have a healthy dose of appreciation for both your country of origin and your country of residence. The two can co-exist, but learning to stop comparing and preventing any bitterness is a process that needs to be navigated, there’s no skipping it, and it can take some time.
You can’t remake old friends
The longer you spend abroad, the more you’ll realise that you can never make the same friends you did when you were 6 or 7 years old. On the plus side, the longer you spend abroad, the more relationships you’ll develop that will provide you with a stronger sense of belonging and grounding.
That said, it is beyond important to continue to nurture your relationships from back home, and if it’s possible, make frequent trips back to connect and spend time with family and friends. When you’re the one who chose to become an expat, the onus leans far more heavily on you to continue to remain close and connected to those who didn’t take that same leap. If you’re anything like me who is now always back and forth, you should be given some sort of Ryanair loyalty points (hint, hint, Michael O’Leary).
You’ll learn more about yourself than you can imagine – and there’s lots you won’t like
Nothing is more confronting than being dropped into another country and told to get your life together. You will be forced to examine every part of your personality and uncover things that a life spent entirely at home and comfortable would never imply. You’ll learn lots about yourself that need a complete system reset, and there’ll be things about yourself you’ll come to realise that you don’t like.
In some countries, it really is who you know and nothing to do with what you know – it’s important to accept this That’s a general rule to some extent pretty much everywhere, but there are certain places where it’s far more culturally normal for this to be the way things are done.
Croatia is one such place. You’ll often be told that something can’t be done, unless you happen to know a certain person. You’ll often be chosen for a job because you’re so-and-so’s friend. You’ll find your way around troublesome tasks because you happened to work with someone’s cousin’s ex-wife.
And so on.
Is it optimal?
No. Is it fair?
Generally speaking, no.
But that’s how it is, and connections are everything in some countries. That brings me onto my next point …
You’ll experience love, hate and neutrality
First comes the love. For Croatia, that love is evoked by the stunning scenery, the crystalline Adriatic Sea, the gorgeous landscapes, the beaches, the food, the mountains, the islands … I could go on and on.
Then comes the hate.
In Croatia’s case, that is a result of the mindless bureaucracy that still exists solely to keep someone’s ex-wife’s sister in a job, the slowness of the system, the corrupt politicians and a new scandal every week or so.
Then comes acceptance and neutrality. That ties strongly in with picking your battles. You begin to accept that some things are par for the course, some you cannot change, and others are not yet ready to be changed. Once you reach that point, you hit acceptance, and that initial love finds a way back in.
You’ll realise that the world is small – and only shrinking
I don’t mean literally, of course, and this also depends on where you’re from and where you are. If you’re European, you’re never far from your country. A two hour Ryanair flight (I promise this isn’t a plug, though I wish it were) for 30 euros or so will see you rapidly transplanted back to where you came from.
This proximity and lack of expense makes the less pleasant, slightly daunting parts of expat life more palatable. There’s a very particular “flavour” of anxiety that plagues many expats, and it helps knowing that wherever you are, and whatever might be going on, you’ve always got a quick, easy and cheap out.
In harder moments, knowing that nothing is permanent and that you’re in control (even when it doesn’t feel like it) can ease those existential burdens only long-term expats know.
You’ll learn to appreciate new travel opportunities are often within easy reach
I’ll admit that I’m lucky with Zagreb in Croatia, as it’s a stone’s throw from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy and even Austria. It’s incredibly well geographically positioned, and quick weekend trips to neighbouring and nearby countries are always easily done. You can set off in the morning and enjoy breakfast in Ljubljana, lunch in Klagenfurt and be back home for dinner in Croatia.
Failing that, you can spend a weekend in Trieste in Italy and then explore the Slovenian coastal town of Piran. Or there’s Budapest ….
You get the point.
Generally speaking, if you’re living anywhere in continental Europe, crossing off a few different countries each weekend is a completely doable thing, be it by road or by cheap flight. You’ll learn to take pleasure in doing this and visiting cities and countries you otherwise likely wouldn’t have bothered with had you not taken the foreign plunge.
You will learn what appreciation really means
I’m lucky in that I work remotely, so each couple of months or so, I hop on a cheap flight to the UK and spend a month there. Each time I go home, I’m filled with a sense of unbridled appreciation for everything I once naively disregarded. You’ll fall head over heels back in love with the food you grew up with, and even the mundane will take on a new charm.
Hearing your own language and your local accent spoken by others will provide a comfort you never noticed before, and the words “home comforts” will suddenly make sense to you. Your horizons will be broadened and your world view widened, but this doesn’t mean you leave home behind. It’s quite the opposite. I now have more time, appreciation and love for it than I ever would have had had I chosen another path.
The same is true for appreciating your wins abroad, be they administrative or otherwise. When you’ve successfully waded through cumbersome bureaucracy and emerged victorious on the other side, it will give you a confidence boost and a spring in your step – relish it!
You will learn who you are, who you definitely aren’t. That might create distance between you and those who haven’t followed your path – and that’s okay!
Life abroad will force you into situations you’d never have been pushed into if you’d remained at home the whole time. Much like I touched on above, you’ll confront yourself and find pieces of you that you don’t like. You’ll also learn what exactly your strengths and weaknesses are when dealing with situations you wouldn’t have had to at all back home.
Expat life shapes you in very peculiar ways that simply can’t be replicated without that experience. This might be jarring, because you’ll find you’ll have outgrown some people, or that your experiences of life have pushed you apart so much that you no longer share as much common ground with those you grew up with.
You’ll say things they don’t understand, and they’ll do the same.
The level of introspection that must be done when living abroad is a type of work typically not done by others. Your view of the world will have been altered, and when they are exactly the same as they always were, your differences can stick out like a sore thumb. These are the reverse culture shocks and growing pains associated with expat life that few talk about. You’re never going to be the same as you were before you embarked on that adventure, and you’ll never quite feel completely “home” again.
That’s the price you often pay, but it’s so worth it.
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See Lauren’s Youtube series on Croatia here.
Lauren Simmonds
Lauren Simmonds is the editor of Total Croatia News, the largest English language portal in Croatia. She lives in Zagreb, Croatia, and is a translator, content writer, interpreter and the co-author of "Croatia - A Survival Kit for Foreigners," which was published in 2022.
