Why moving back can be harder than moving away

The concept of home is deeply rooted in complexity and emotion. The memories and experiences that tether us to ‘home’ and shape us in our formative years can make it frightening to leave the comfort and familiarity behind. Taking the leap and moving to an unknown city – or even another continent – takes confidence and a willingness to adapt and make sacrifices, but what if the most difficult transition of all is returning to the place you used to call home?

This writer has minimal experience with moving countries but it’s an experience nevertheless. In 2018, I moved to Vancouver for six months, tagging along with my boyfriend when work took him there. The West Coast of Canada isn’t a culture shock but there were still significant differences to our life in London. We spent our weekends hiking, swimming in lakes, renting tiny cars by the hour and driving to the local beach, or the ferry port to hop over to an idyllic island for the day. I haven’t been to another city so immersed in nature, with mountains in the background and the sea never more than a 20-minute drive away. There were bears, raccoons and whales – we’d see skunks in the garden of our little rented house.

The culture and design scene were far less exciting and diverse than what we were used to in London and there wasn’t a single boutique hotel that I would have been excited to stay in, though the food and coffee were excellent and the city was cleaner and quieter than home. The arrival of autumn was visually spectacular and Halloween in our neighbourhood felt like a scene from a Hallmark movie.

We were away for less than a year, so our time in Canada was a flash in the pan, but on returning to London (something I was excited about), I spent about a month convinced we’d made the wrong decision. The city seemed filthy and run down compared to the picture-perfect area where we’d been living. It smelled bad, there was an overwhelming amount of litter, graffiti, people, and noise. It wasn’t so easy (or cheap) to jump in a borrowed car at weekends anymore and even if we could, the nearest beach was two hours away, the mountains non-existent, the rent eye-watering. It quickly began to feel normal again and now I barely remember being away but for a short time, the much-anticipated feeling of being ‘home’ was replaced by the urge to escape.

I spoke to seven people about their differing experiences with moving back and interior stylist and consultant Gillian Lawlee faced the most dramatic life upheaval, having returned to her native Cork after 21 years living in California. When reflecting on the unexpected challenges of moving ‘home’ to Ireland, having left for the US when she was barely into adulthood, Gillian says, “I left Ireland at 20 and spent 21 years living in California. I did everything for the first time there, from learning to drive to building a career, getting married and having kids, even getting used to dealing with utilities and other practical ‘adult’ things. I wasn’t prepared for the emotional and psychological stress of starting again from scratch when I came home (by choice) to Cork.

Life is slower here in the literal sense – I wasn’t prepared for how much is still done by snail mail and phone call, versus online or automated systems where it’s clear what steps you need to take. It means you get a lot of different answers to the same questions, depending on who you talk to, so getting something done can be a matter of getting the right person on the phone, on the right day. I had to start again as a learner driver and pay for lessons to get my Irish driving licence, even though I’d been driving in the US for 20 years because there was no license exchange programme. I also had to wait for a re-diagnosis of conditions that I was already being treated for in California because I couldn’t access my regular medication otherwise.

I think that my frustration has a lot to do with how we prepared for the move. I didn’t understand that I wouldn't just be able to bring my medical records and continue treatment. This (among other things that took me by surprise) was something I probably should have known prior, so I could have planned for it. Another thing that has been a huge source of stress was the impact on my career. I wasn’t prepared for how different the landscape for interior design and decorating was here. I think that, combined with the loss of an incredible network that I’d built over the years in LA, left me reeling. I was feeling very lost professionally and I think as somebody whose chosen career is integral to who I am as a person and as an artist, it also left me feeling personally adrift and depressed. I’d spent years building an incredible network of colleagues and friends and you don't realise how much you lean on those people until they’re not there. I'm still working on it but things are so different and I think it has changed how I see the work I do and also the work I want to do. Professionally, it's really shifting me and it has taken a long time to wrap my head around it.

Renting culture in Ireland was another thing that took me by surprise. Compared to what I was used to, the standards are low and I think there's a general acceptance of making do, without really challenging the person or the authority that can fix the issue. I found it frustrating that homes mostly come furnished, often with really low-quality pieces. In our search for a place to live, I saw so much dirty carpet, ill-fitting things and poor repairs, and I’m the kind of person who takes decorative kantha blankets on a camping trip. It’s crucial that a rented home feels cared for and like my own.

You really have to untangle yourself from so many facets of life, from the personal to the professional to the bureaucratic and there's a real unraveling of so many things. It puts you in a different mindset and the change can be overwhelming. I still believe that moving back was the best decision for our family, it was just really hard. Harder than I expected it to be.”

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Emily Campbell, owner of If Only If nightwear, has recently returned home to London after living in Bermuda for the past three years. Her experiences of moving away and moving back were both positive but the dramatic change of pace has been the most difficult part to adjust to.

“We left London at the bleakest point of Covid, just after the last-minute Christmas lockdown. It was a bitterly cold January when we boarded an almost empty flight to our new home in Bermuda and I felt both guilty and lucky to be leaving a city that was a shell of its usual self to start a temporary new life on a warm and colourful island.

While our years living by the beach in Bermuda were idyllic (my youngest child once asked me what a sock was), I always hankered after a return to London – the pre-Covid London of diverse culture, good food, beautiful walks.

Last month we finally moved back, ready to feel like tourists in our own city again. I can already see that the magic of London is still here, as are the things I missed so much but I’m also struck to realise that I am different now to when I left. Seeing the horizon is something that calms me, and I miss that now that it’s obscured by the urban sprawl. Then there’s the sheer pace of life here and what a contrast that is. Several times, I’ve found myself standing completely still on a London street, eyes squinting while the city rushes all around me. I’m not yet back on the hamster wheel and our move is still recent enough to notice that I’m lying awake longer at night as my tired brain tries to wind down after the video game effect of the day.

No doubt I’ll up the ante again soon but Bermuda has taught me the importance of slowing down, taking in the view and breathing deeply. Even if that means leaning out of the top floor window of my house, trying to catch the sunset above the rows and rows of chimneys.”

Emma Harding, co-founder of Re: Agency, is a Brit who grew up overseas and now lives in New York, having attempted to return to the UK – a country that she thought would feel like home but it didn’t. Emma explains “I grew up as an expat child of British parents and until the age of 16, I’d actually never lived in the UK, but as far as my response to anyone who asked where I was from, I was British. So, when I finally moved to the UK for my last two years of school, university and a short time in London after graduating, I was keen to cling on to as much Britishness as possible. At home, you can be lured into a false sense of ease – you speak the language, there’s a familiarity with how the country works, your friends are there, Waitrose(!). It was only when I moved to Hong Kong and later returned to London in an attempt to put down roots and build a life, that I realised home isn’t just where you come from; you make your home. Not only in the physical sense but also in the life you create for yourself. Now, very happily ensconced in New York, it’s taken me moving here to realise why my attempts to move ‘home’ to London didn’t feel like the right fit.

As an expat, you learn a new way of living. When you’re in a new place and you’re starting again, you have to be social, you have to put yourself out there (physically and emotionally). A lot of the time, a relocation overseas is for a job where there are different cultural working practices, so you’re forced to make changes. In my experience, starting again creates an appetite for exploration and a keenness to get to know your new surroundings – it awakens a ‘get up and out’ attitude. When you’ve been hiking mountains and diving off boats, then you return home feeling changed and open to new experiences, it can be frustrating to discover that others don’t share the same mindset.

I don’t think I could attempt to live in the UK for a third time (Mum, please forgive me). It’s the lack of adventure, the weather, and dare I say it, the predictability of a life in England that makes me not want to live there. It means Sunday and Monday nights being out of bounds for socialising and the realisation that friends are too settled and happy with their routines to want to share in the extraordinary experiences and adventures I hoped we’d have together. Those ‘home comforts’ I so badly craved whilst living abroad were suddenly the reason I wanted to get out of there again. There’s no right or wrong, but I’ve made a different life now and the place where I feel at home isn’t where I expected it to be.”

British journalist Isolde Walters also made the move from London to New York, but unlike Emma, she returned home after three years. Isolde strongly believes that moving back was the bigger adjustment. “When I moved to New York, I felt like I was exploring a new frontier. It was novel and exciting and a challenge – so much to get to know, so many people to meet, so much to do. There were definitely some stumbling moments in the early days – the logistical difficulty of securing an apartment as a foreigner, the feeling of being very alone, a stranger in a strange city. But moving back was far, far harder.

I moved back to London after three years away but those short years had been quite formative ones – I was back in a city where many of my friends had coupled up, moved away or had children. It was an altered place and it made me realise: while I was away, life was still happening. It's an awkward mix of the unknown and the familiar. Suddenly, you have to go about making a life again and making new friends in your home city, all while missing the friends in the place you moved to, who became like family.

I think the experience would have been very different if I’d moved back to the UK with a partner but to do it alone made me feel very isolated at times. The adventure of living abroad and of being an expat was a wonderful thing and I feel lucky to have experienced it but returning home afterwards was nowhere near as fun.”

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Content creator and podcast host Charlotte Jacklin lived in London and then Margate before returning to her home county of Lincolnshire. Charlotte’s move was a practical one – driven by proximity to family and affordability. Even after six years, the struggle to meet like-minded friends in the area continues to be the biggest downside, as Charlotte explains, “I said I’d move to Lincoln over my dead body, and then there I was six years ago, creeping back with a moving van, a husband and a small baby. It’s an hour from where I was born and raised. It’s the same county but my only memories of being here are drunken late teenage ones. I didn’t move back because I loved the area, it just made financial sense and my parents were kindly able to help with childcare.

It was a culture shock after living in London and Margate, which my friend describes as being like a perpetual freshers week because someone’s always new in town, and people are always happy to meet them. Lincoln less so, and weirdly since I’ve shared this observation online, people have echoed the same view – that it’s a hard city to make friends in. I’ve since started a book club and I made everyone introduce themselves and say why they joined. I’d estimate 70% of them said they were reluctantly back in Lincoln, and all said they wanted to make friends.When I first moved back north six years ago, there was no sushi, no sourdough, no mates and not many places or opportunities to meet people.

I still think we’ll move away again but lately, I haven’t wanted to leave as much as I once did. We’ve talked about it a lot but price-wise, it just hasn’t been an option. I do have a couple of friends here now but I’d love more – I’ve just accepted that I have to go to London to do most of my socialising. On the plus side, now we have two independent bakeries baking sourdough…”

Journalist, podcast host and social media manager Niamh O’Donoghue had a similar experience moving back and forth between London and the quiet west coast of Ireland, before ultimately deciding to stick with London. In her case, the return was steered by work and the decision to leave a rural paradise behind and live in the city again wasn’t an easy one to make.

Niamh explains that “Covid was the ultimate deciding factor in us leaving London to return to Ireland. I was medically high risk and at the time there was so much uncertainty, so I moved back in with my parents for a while. After nine months, my boyfriend and I decided to try and alleviate our parents and find a temporary solution. We chose the west of Ireland in part because it was in our budget and also because we wanted access to open space. It was very idyllic – it almost felt like a retirement settlement for millennials – but after two years of growing vegetables, riding horses and daily sea swims, we were starting to get priced out of renting. It’s hard to believe that rent in rural Ireland matched that of London, but it did.

Despite the beautiful setting, it was difficult to justify the cost of living in an area without proper water infrastructure (our water would literally come from the mountain) and reliable public transport (we were 10km from the nearest town and I can confirm you’ll only run out of loo roll once). To boot, I’d been working remotely during lockdown and the time came for me to switch roles, which required a move back to London. It was a bittersweet decision to leave the freedom and unrivalled access to nature but London is home for now. Though, I’ve taken some of the west coast life with me and managed to grow a small plot of vegetables and herbs in the back garden. Ireland is home, it always will be, but ultimately my work in fashion and tech dictates where I live and I’m lucky enough to have roots here in London. Despite Ireland’s excellence in fashion exports, the industry at home doesn’t provide the same opportunities right now. But who knows, maybe I’ll one day trade in my Margielas for farm boots again.”