The highs and lows of returning home after living abroad
Moving to South Korea to experience the expat life and become an English teacher was undoubtedly one of the best decisions I’ve made in my 20s.
It was trying, rewarding, cathartic, lonely, lovely, perfectly imperfect. My sojourn in the land of the Morning Calm lasted two years. During this period of time, I forged lifelong friendships with very special humans, ate all the jjimdak I could get my hands on, hiked beautiful mountains and generally had a good time. But I was ready to depart after two blissful years.
Below are the ups and downs of my repatriation process as I settled back into American life.
The high points
REUNIONS
When you return home after living that cushy English teacher expat life in South Korea, everyone wants to spend time with you. The novelty of a relative or friend making a grand return after years of living in a distant land makes you momentarily popular and sought after. You get lots of attention and your calendar is booked with dinners, drinks and coffee dates. Catching up with dear friends and family after so much time has passed leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy inside. Everyone is quite impressed with your bravery and sense of adventure. You’re kind of a big deal.
FAMILY QUALITY TIME
I decided to return to the US and move in with my parents after 10 years of living on my own largely because I wanted to spend time with my family. Being away for two years served to show me the unrelenting passage of time and to truly notice that my parents are aging. I’m also the proud auntie of 3 nephews and 1 niece and I struggled knowing I was missing much of their childhood. I didn’t just want to be some abstract aunt that they saw on photos and on video calls here and there. I wanted to be present and have a relationship with them. I’ve been in the US for 1+ year and although my living situation gets tough at times, I’m still happy I’ve chosen to prioritize my family at this stage of my life.
MILLENNIAL RETIREMENT
I remained voluntarily unemployed for 5 months after setting foot in American soil because I wanted to decompress, process and travel some more. It was during this time that I lived like a modern-day millennial lady of leisure that the idea for Life of Leisure was born. And now here we are.
HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS
Although the Korean won I earned allowed me to backpack extensively after my stint in South Korea (and remain jobless in the US for months), my income in the US is significantly higher than my Korean salary. So I made it rain! A trip to NYC in the spring for my bday! A midsummer holiday in LA to reunite with friends I met in Korea! Another trip to Miami in the fall with my best friends to close out 2019 in style! It was a bit intoxicating but eventually, I got a handle on my spending situation.
PLANTING ROOTS
It’s so easy to feel stuck in a limbo while living abroad. Like you’re not really here but also not really there. The concept of home gets complex and a bit existential. My free-spirited nature thrives in motion and flux, which is why backpacking suits me so well, but like everyone else, I also love a home base and following my regimes. As much as I crave novelty and adventure, I also value consistency and routine. And while South Korea was home for 2 years, there were moments when I wanted to look through old photo albums or trinkets that were in the US, in my actual home. Returning to the US and planting roots (even if temporarily) has been good for my soul, body and mind.
STRATEGICALLY PLANNING AHEAD
Life as an expat teacher in South Korea can oftentimes feel like a Peter Pan-esque existence. Sure you have a job but it’s so relaxed (at least in my experience) and you don’t pay rent. All you worry about are your ridiculously affordable utilities and whatever bills you have back home. The cost of living is low which means you can have a very active social life full of eating out and drinking while still managing to save up a nice chunk of your monthly paycheck. Life’s so good, so effortless that it’s easier not to think about your life path and future career. Returning home gives you a nice wake-up call from your South Korean Peter Pan lifestyle and forces you to think hard about your resume, career, relationships, investing endeavors, you know the adulting things in life. While not always pleasant, thinking ahead is a necessary component of adult living and we do ourselves a disservice if we avoid it. While thinking about all the big things in life won’t guarantee concrete answers and a clear path to follow, you will get clearer on what you want and what you don’t want. Part of successfully transitioning back to your home country depends on your ability to sit and mull over life’s big decisions.
The low points
THE ELEVATOR PITCH
In light of the fact that social media has conditioned us to exclusively want the highlight reels of our lives delivered in the shortest amount of time — lest our attention spans give out — how do you sum up two of the most transformative years of your 20s in one conversation? It took a while to gauge who wanted the lengthy and nuanced summary of my life in Korea and who was merely interested in the TL;DR version. Turns out most people just wanted the quick version, so I got pretty good at delivering my “Teaching English and Living Abroad in Korea Elevator Pitch” in 10 minutes or less. While this isn’t so sad in and of itself, I found it sad that so little of what I recounted was relatable to the people I was sharing it with. They were able to conceptualize the information, but they would never know what it was like to be there.
BEING BROKE
Thankfully I got a job right before I had to use this hilarious Bernie meme. But, a lot of the peers I met in Korea did have to ask for their parents’ financial support during their repatriation process. It especially sucks because most of your friends from home have their shit together with stable jobs and long-term savings (a foreign concept to you), so you feel inadequate because you can’t help but use your peers as a social benchmark on where you should be in terms of certain life’s milestones. By comparison (and/or based on your perception), you’re lagging behind. Obviously having no money isn’t great for your morale or self-esteem so it’s normal to feel low but just hang in there and keep in mind that you will not be broke forever!
GOING BACKWARDS
Ugh, this one is dreadful. When you live abroad, you’re independent AF with your own apartment and paying your bills and booking flights for weekend trips. But returning home usually entails a brief (or long) period of having to move in with your parents or family to save on rent until you get your feet on the ground. At times, it’s been incredibly challenging for me to live with my parents after I spent two years in Korea living entirely on my own (sans roommates). Ugh solitude is bliss for me and sure, I’m social too and love my family, but at the end of the day, I cherish quiet and calm in my home above all else. Expect some depressive episodes and/or intense episodes of the quarter-life crisis. Oh, the fun!
JOB HUNTING
I was so deluded in thinking I’d find a job within weeks of sending out resumes (lol!). My ego got checked real quick when I received very little traction to the seemingly endless resumes and cover letters I sent out into the void. Looking for a job is stressful and difficult. And it’s likely job hunting will have you spiral while you wait to hear back for an interview, any interview! Almost all my former expat friends have gone through this grueling process, to differing degrees. If you don’t even know what kind of job you want, I highly recommend you take some time to think and strategize while you’re still excited to be back home. It’s hard to retain clarity of mind when you’re down because recruiters don’t care about the invaluable transferable skills you gained while living abroad.
SOCIAL DISCONNECTION
Once you’ve shared your elevator pitch to your home friends, it’s really hard to talk to them about what you’re going through because they don’t get it. Just like you may not fully get their own personal situation. I’m not saying they don’t want to hear it, but you feel that they don’t because they can only comprehend so much of what you’re saying, so you stay quiet. Isolation, whether self-imposed or not, is a common part of repatriation. You need to make sense of everything you’re feeling which is distressing a lot of the time. What helped me a lot was to reach out to former expats that had already been in my shoes or were experiencing the pains of transitioning to proper adulthood after living overseas. The solidarity that these relationships offered me was instrumental in overcoming the post-expat blues.
REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK
A staple of the repatriation blues is to compare your home country to your former host country and deem the latter better. For example, every time I use the subway in Chicago I’m reminded of how much better and efficient Korea’s public transportation is. Profound nostalgia for what once was sets in and hits you heavy. This is called reverse culture shock. Your brain can’t handle its new (old) reality despite the familiarity. This period of readjustment usually fades as you start integrating and start accepting that this will be home for a while.
