One Year Abroad: A Retrospective
On February 2nd, 2022, I arrived in Spain with two bags to my name and no job. I had decided to use the nationality my late grandpa gifted me by means of being a refugee and move to Europe. Now it’s a year later, and I want to talk about it for anyone who wants to move abroad, so you know about what I’ve learned along the way.
Bureaucracy
Every time we see an expat on Instagram or TikTok, they tell us about how wonderful the new country is! The food is amazing! People are so nice! And that may be true, but they never tell us about the AMOUNT of paperwork you have to do!
Even as a Spanish citizen who didn’t require a visa, bureaucracy became my worst enemy. Changing my residence, and then obtaining my National Identity Card, and then getting my social security number, and then…you get the picture.
Countries are not always prepared for immigrants. If you are not paying for a relocation agency, you may as well consider there won’t be anyone to explain to you what to do. Do your research beforehand about paperwork you need to do once you’re settled.
The Vacation Months
It’s very easy to fall into this trap. You are in a new country, you are settled, and you may even have a job! And now you feel like a weird kind of tourist!
Everything is new and interesting, and you want to see it all. You do some sightseeing, you travel around, and that’s how you spend your money and time. After all, you didn’t move here to not see everything the new country has to offer!
And that’s so cool! I love that for you! But when I did it, I neglected a big thing that would come and bite me in the ass later on (spoilers).
I made ONE friend, and it was my roommate. I didn’t try to insert myself into the society of the city I lived in. And that was kind of stupid in retrospect because I wanted to see so much that I ended up knowing very little about my new home.
And of course, the vacation months run dry, work starts being more demanding, you need to use your money for other stuff, and now you need to stay put more and more in a place where you know no one.
The First Depression
When I moved abroad, my mom told me to watch out for the six-month and one-year blues. Being the foolish person that I am, I didn’t pay her much mind.
Sure enough, six months later, I started thinking about missing my dogs, my friends, and my family (in that order). Nostalgia hits you from the shadows, one night, and you start crying.
It didn’t help that my birthday was coming in less than a month, and I was going to spend it with no one because, again, I didn’t put in the work to make friends!
Thankfully, I am the luckiest man in the world, and my best friend decided to visit for my birthday, and that helped a bunch to fight the six-month blues! But I know this is not a solution for everyone…and you still have to contend with the bigger blues at the one-year mark.
The Second Stretch
Past the six-month marker, and my friend having gone back to Mexico, I decided that the one-year blues was not going to catch me as off guard as the six-month one did. I started going to comic conventions, meeting new people, and even downloaded some dating apps.
I started working hard on being part of the Spanish society and realized that making friends as an adult is hard but not impossible.
I started exercising, bought myself a longboard, and started working on my mental health again.
I felt like Rocky Balboa preparing for my second fight against Ivan Drago — you down (is that joke even funny?). I was happier than I have ever been! I even got to see some family that came to Spain for business, and I heard they told my mom I was a completely different person (thanks Tia Maria for vouching for me, love you!).
Christmas was a bit hard, but I got to spend it with my father’s cousins, and they are such great people that it was not a problem.
But then…
The One Year Blues
Ah yes, one year has passed now, and I have to admit I had almost forgotten about the six-month blues. I was living my best life when my dad sent me a picture of my dog, and I just started crying.
Finally! After all this time, we met! The one-year blues had arrived, and by God, I noticed. I couldn’t talk to my mom, or my dad, or my friends without crying. I just wanted to go home, get my old life back, and act as if I had taken a gap year.
But remember how I prepared for this? Yes! I did! And so, I started doing some stuff that has helped me immensely, so now I introduce to you:
Fernando’s List of Things That Worked:
- Make a list of how your life is good now: Your mind is being blinded by nostalgia, you think about how your life was good then and are not realizing that there are good things now, so force yourself to think about that.
- Call a local friend: If you miss your old friends, call one of the new ones. Calling a friend 8000km away is not going to help you much, but going out for a beer or a run will get your mind off this mindset.
- Spend less time in your house: Go out for walks, do some sightseeing, recover the wonder from the vacation months! You’ve only been here for a year; you don’t know everything there is to know about the city, trust me.
- Let yourself spiral sometimes: I know this sounds counterintuitive, but sometimes you have to allow yourself to cry and to miss your old life. Take a self-care day whenever you feel like you need it and call your old friends and cry if you need to cry.
One Year Later
On February 2nd, 2023, it was one year since I arrived in Spain, and a bunch of things happened to me, a lot of them good, some of them sad, but all of them formative.
Today I can say that I’m happier than ever, and that moving to Spain was one of the greatest decisions I have made in my life. My mental health is the strongest it’s ever been.
So, to anyone wondering if they should move abroad, I want to say: Do it! It is amazing! But be warned that it’s not like changing towns. You are not two hours away from your family or friends, and you are in a new culture, so that’s kind of hard.
If there are some lessons you should take away from this article, let them be these ones: Prepare yourself for dealing with unrelenting bureaucracy, make friends as soon as possible, insert yourself into the society you are living in, and most importantly, enjoy your life. You are making a brave decision, and you should be proud and able to enjoy it.
