In the heart of an expat

As much as efforts are being made to identify themselves, there are realities that only the heart of a expat You can understand.

Those who remain at home see only the tip of the iceberg: a beautiful city to live in, international friendships, professional satisfactions and wonderful photos to show on social media. But almost no one is aware of the heavy baggage expat They must carry themselves on their long journey. The heart of a expat is in fact a tangle of emotions and contradictions often incomprehensible in the eyes of others.

A expat It all starts from scratch, like it was born a second time.

You leave and you find yourself alone in front of the world. Alone with a heavy suitcase full of dreams, goals and expectations, but also endless fears that struggle to abandon us.

As our adventure begins, we are completely alone in the face of the responsibilities, obstacles and daily challenges that await us. We meet new friends, we have new experiences, the luckiest also find love. But at the base of everything, there are always and only ourselves. We are the only people on whom, at least at the beginning, we can count.

At the time of our expatriation, our second life begins. With the difference that the first steps will not be accompanied by the attentive and caring eyes of the family. Parents can only support us remotely, they will always have a word of comfort for us, but from morning to evening and throughout the year It's just us.

Everything from the outside seems easy, everything "normal". Many will beg us not to complain, almost mocking our state of mind, because we chose this life after all and were "lucky" to live it. But what they do not know is that this "luck" we sweated, relying only on our strength.

Expatriate means studying, integrating, learning the language, adapting.

In the beautiful country we are used to hosting multiple tourists every year. When we travel or expand, we are the guests, and we are not always welcomed as we would like. We expect respect, understanding and tolerance upon arrival. But we will never receive it if we are not the first to integrate, because it is the country that is hosting us and not the other way around.

We must quickly learn one or more foreign languages, adapt to bureaucracy, customs, eating habits, Relations. Exactly what we expect from a foreigner coming to Italy. In such a context it is easy to fall into temptation to prejudiceBe convinced that it is the others who are wrong, that all foreigners treat us with detachment and indifference. The discrimination unfortunately exists, but in most cases we are the creators of our actions. We have to adapt to the host country, not the new country to adapt to us. Foreigners are us and we must fight every day to emerge in society, break down stereotypes and integrate in the best way.

You think this is easy?

From the outside perhaps so, because from outside the expatriate looks like a world painted in rose. But the reality of the facts is quite different and the adaptation process is long, tortuous and challenging.

The heart of a expat is a real hybrid of identity.

We find ourselves passing from one foreign language to another without realizing it. We feel Italian but not too much, but still too Italian to feel foreign. We meet exceptional people to say goodbye to a few months later. We learn to live only in the present, not to think of a mysterious future or a short but intense past. Life From expat This is it: many people who cross our path, few who remain, very few on which to really count; and the perennial feeling of feeling on the cross between two worlds.

Often we lack the reference points, relationships are elusive, our much desired freedom turns into solitude and a sense of loss. Part of us are linked to Italy, the other is attracted from abroad as a magnet. So we find ourselves having millions of roots spread around the world, without a single fertile soil on which to grow. Cultivating this great "garden" of life gives satisfaction, but also many labors. We like our nomadic life, but at the same time it confuses us. We alter the desire for freedom and adventure to that of stability too difficult to find.

We expat We're moody, curious about everything, we never settle. We chose a life for which, believe it or not, We fight with narrow teeth every single day. We face daily battles that can only be understood by those who live them themselves. Therefore, it would be better to count up to ten before criticize, minimize or even only idealize too much life abroad. The heart of a expat It is much more fragile and mysterious than you think, and nothing you feel should be taken for granted.