37 Reflections After One Year Abroad

On Turning 37, Finding Home in Two Places, and One Trip Around the Sun

Today I turn 37.

It also marks one full year since I packed up my life in California and moved to Switzerland.

Looking back, I realize this year wasn’t just about moving to another country.

It was about becoming a beginner again. More often than not, I felt like an infant searching for its first word. Tschüss? Zwei? Baum?

Learning another language.

Falling in love with a new landscape.

Missing one home while building another.

Feeling like the elephant in the room while oddly invisible at the same time.

Crying in ways I didn’t expect over things I didn’t expect.

Trusting life in ways I never had before.

Throughout the year, I found myself jotting down little observations whenever something made me laugh, struck my heart, or softly changed the way I saw the world.

They’re not rules and they are certainly not advice.

They’re simply things I’ve noticed after one full trip around the sun in a place that was once completely unfamiliar.

So on my 37th birthday…

Here are 37 reflections from my first year abroad. Maybe one of them will meet you exactly where you are.

---

1. You’ll miss things you never expected to miss.

Not just people.

The way the fog creeps over the hills and you instantaneously feel like getting cozy.

Your favorite grocery store.

The roads you could drive without thinking.

The version of yourself who instinctively knew where everything was.

2. You can deeply love your new life and still grieve the one you left behind.

Those feelings don’t compete with one another… or at least they try not to.

They simply remind you that you’ve loved well.

3. Moving somewhere completely new reveals parts of yourself that never had a reason to exist before.

I have found myself completely in love with snow.

The way it silences even the incessant noise I can find within my own head.

4. There is a tearing that happens when you stop being a visitor and become a resident.

Don’t rush through it.

It’s part of becoming.

5. The people who change your life often aren’t the ones you expected to meet.

…like pearls strung across a worn tapestry.

6. The more people I meet, the more I notice that we’re all just trying to love, belong, and make sense of this life.

Different languages.

Different traditions.

Same humanity.

7. Every culture has something beautiful to teach you.

Every single one.

8. You will become irrationally excited when you find cilantro, ghee, or sumac…

…and you’ll miss grocery stores that carry more than one variety of lettuce. 🥬

9. It takes one full trip around the sun before a place truly introduces itself to you.

And even then, it’s just the beginning.

10. You don’t really know a place until you’ve watched it wake up in spring, bloom in summer, let go in autumn, and fall asleep beneath winter snow.

Again, it’s just the beginning.

11. Learning a new language is exhausting.

Learning that everyone actually speaks a slightly different dialect from their village and more likely five other languages?

Seriously humbling.

12. You can feel lonely in one of the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen.

Beauty doesn’t replace belonging.

13. Most people are kinder than fear tells you they will be.

Chances are, the woman at the post office won’t chew you out if you put the postage on wrong. And if she does…

You probably won’t understand her anyway.

Smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave.

14. Your integration meeting probably won’t teach you how to belong.

Your neighbors might.

The woman at the village grocery store will. (Thank you Savi.)

15. Don’t stop being yourself just because you’re somewhere new.

Your uniqueness isn’t something to shrink.

It’s something to share.

16. Feeling uncomfortable isn’t always a sign you’re on the wrong path.

Sometimes it’s simply the feeling of growing.

17. There will be days when you wonder what on earth you’re doing.

Keep going anyway.

18. There will be moments when you want to go home.

Sometimes home is a place.

Sometimes it’s a person.

Sometimes it’s simply a feeling you’re learning to create within yourself.

19. You’ll miss people you didn’t even realize had become part of your daily life.

Hey grocery store clerk!

I always chose your lane because you were kind and happy.

I loved knowing my food was being scanned by a happy, kind person before it left the store. Thank you.

20. Without noticing it, you’ll slowly begin building another home.

One conversation.

One neighbor.

One shared meal.

One friendship at a time.

21. Some of the people who will become your greatest friends are people you haven’t met yet.

Trust that.

22. Every place asks something different of you.

Let it.

23. Not everyone will understand you.

You won’t understand everyone either.

That’s okay.

Curiosity bridges far more than certainty ever will.

24. Language isn’t the only thing that creates distance.

Fear does too.

25. This year taught me how to live a simpler life without becoming a simpler person.

26. Sometimes what feels unfamiliar also feels threatening.

Give it time.

27. Nature has a beautiful way of reminding you of home…

…until one day you realize nature itself has quietly become home.

28. The wind has become one of my greatest teachers.

I’ve learned to listen when it calls.

29. Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like a scared little girl…

…and remembered I am a woman.

30. I talk to myself a lot more than I used to.

She’s pretty good company.

31. You can know many things…

…and still have so much to learn from the people around you.

Stay teachable.

32. Curiosity has changed my life far more than certainty ever has.

33. You don’t have to force the story.

Some chapters simply need time to unfold.

34. Home is sneaky.

It grows quietly while you’re busy wondering if you’ll ever belong.

35. Sometimes you don’t realize a place has become home until you leave it…

…and find yourself excited to come back.

36. Looking back, it wasn’t one giant leap that changed my life.

It was a hundred tiny yeses.

37. Today I’m 37.

One year ago, I began building a life in a place that once felt impossibly far away.

I’m still learning.

Still becoming.

Still deeply in love with California.

Still falling in love with Switzerland.

Still following the wind.

That feels exactly as it should.

---

Love you,

Bridgette Joy