Moving around in the World and making Horcruxes

Different countries, languages, cultures, social structures, lifestyles, and struggles will find you whenever you move to and from a country.

Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash

Nowadays, we have so many more options to move abroad and find a different environment than 30 years ago. It’s still a daunting thing to do, but it has become much more accessible. Most people now have family members or friends who’ve decided to leave their country and try their luck somewhere else.

I’m one of those people. I left Hungary in the hopes of finding a better financial and social situation. My journey took me to England, where I spent nine years, and then to South Korea for a year before I returned to the UK.

Living in three different countries has given me plenty of experiences that have shaped my way of thinking and built my personality, something I’m truly grateful for. But there’s a flip side — leaving your home country can make you feel like you’re stuck between homes. None of the places where you’ve lived can ever feel fully like home because you’re always missing something from the others. This struggle to feel at home is something many people who’ve lived in different countries, including myself, experience.

As a millennial, I can’t help but think of a Harry Potter metaphor to describe this feeling. It’s like having Horcruxes. In Harry Potter, the villain Who Must Not Be Named splits his soul into pieces to achieve immortality, but this fractured existence isn’t truly living. Similarly, moving from one country to another feels like leaving parts of yourself behind — your friends, your favourite cafe, the unique flavours of traditional foods, and the familiar sounds of streets you once walked every day.

In the end, we all learn the skill of creating a home wherever we go. Many say that home isn’t a place but the people in it, and while that’s true, for those of us who’ve scattered our lives across different places, the concept of home becomes something more complex, felt in fragments rather than found in a single place.

Feedback is always welcomed and appreciated.
Feel free to write me a comment with criticism, ideas, or questions.