Today, I explore three aspects of this transitional, redefining, finding-yourself-again kind of space: identity, work, and how we — and others — see us fitting in socially.

Identity (Towards Being Treated as a Local)

The ‘you’ in your mind. Even though you have a new address now, in another country, obviously you yourself have not changed — or, have you? You may think of yourself as always being the same, in part because you get acclimatized to any change in yourself slowly. You are in your mind throughout the thinking you do about your move, and you are also a witness to every little step you take. Both towards the relocation itself, and towards becoming the person you are determined to become in the new place.

Who you are to others. You make sure you smile at new neighbours so they know you are the friendly kind. You attempt a few words in your new language to show respect and to indicate you are trying. Almost unavoidably, you create little faux pas moments that cause your neighbours to remember you for all the wrong reasons. All because, quite likely, you are trying hard to be seen a certain way. Or to be that way? I suspect that whatever image you try to portray, people will surprise you with how they see you. Coming from somewhere else, it becomes essential to establish your identity.

How your identity is established: “Are you American?” is what we often hear as soon as it becomes obvious we are not native Portuguese speakers (read: immediately). “Where are you from?” is easier for Kathy to respond to, having been born in Canada and having lived there for most of her life. When I tell people I come from Slovakia, I am comforted to know that they had heard of it (which was not a sure thing in Canada), but I am also instantly doubted on the account of my English fluency. Well, I lived in Canada. OK, identity established. But such conversation can get more involved at hotel check-in when you present a Slovak ID and a Portuguese credit card. One of my most embarrassing hotel encounters involved a receptionist in Brussels switching to fluent Portuguese. Thankfully, the context provided enough clues for me to give confident “Sim” and “Não” answers, so I avoided turning off the friendly receptionist.

Your legal identity: About that ID: A number of years back, I became a permanent resident and later citizen of Canada, and I told the authorities in Slovakia, who took away my Slovak ID. I retained my Slovak citizenship, and I had my Slovak passport to prove it, but I was told I couldn’t keep my Slovak ID. Maybe it’s just me, but I took that personally. In my mind, without the ID, which is officially called citizen card, I felt like the government was telling me I belonged less. That hurt. Coincidentally, on my return to Canada, a Canadian immigration officer greeted me with “Welcome home!,” sealing the notion that I gained a new home … and perhaps lost a bit of the old one. ‘You can only call one place a home, and you have made your choice’, was how I saw it.

How you re-become who you once were: Rules changed a few years later, and it became possible for Slovak citizens to retain their citizen card even if their permanent residence was in another country. I got mine again before we moved to Portugal, and I appreciate having this little “proof” of belonging to my country of origin in my wallet. It is also the most practical thing to have an official EU-country issued identification card both for daily living in Portugal and for travel across Europe. There is also less to explain compared to pulling up your passport every time you deal with government.

Meaningful Pursuits (Sense of Contribution)

Why does meaning matter? Does meaning matter when you choose your pursuits? It does to me. I have always navigated towards things that felt meaningful, and I have often struggled with things that did not. In his recent book, The Meaning of Your Life, Arthur C. Brooks describes meaning as having three parts: coherence, purpose, and significance. In plain language, meaningful work makes sense, points somewhere, and matters. That may be why projects without a clear direction can feel so draining: They rob us of the chance to feel that our effort is adding up to something worthwhile.

Can we change the world? Meaning is what keeps me teaching and consulting. A well-designed (coherent) course about something useful (purpose) that enables students to make a difference in the world (significance) is a meaningful pursuit to me. A program in inclusive leadership can help someone nurture a workplace where people know they belong. An organizational psychology course can build capacity to understand the causes of reactive behaviours on a team, and activate work that is more creative. Developing a growth mindset can help a disenchanted employee see their life as full of opportunity and potential. All of it can help make a positive difference in the world.

Reigniting meaning in others. I was recently invited to lead a closing plenary session at a higher education conference here in Portugal. Imagine a roomful of university professors, librarians, and administrators from three continents energized about imagining — and taking the first steps towards creating — learning and supports that matter. I call that a meaningful pursuit. I am also currently wrapping up a project in Slovakia that is aimed at taking a support program for teams of game-changing scientists, researchers, and innovators to the next level. I see meaning in that work.

Practice patience. It took time for some of these opportunities to start presenting themselves. I am new here, after all. But I am grateful that our big move from Canada, where we were professionally established and well networked, to Portugal, where in many regards we are building many connections from scratch, did not disrupt my ability to continue contributing to the kind of work that, I believe, matters.

Being Connected

Strong and weak ties. Our new connections here in Portugal are of different kinds, ranging in … maybe “closeness” is the word I am looking for. We have made the very best of friends: a couple who moved to Porto around the same time as we did have become the closest thing to family. Then there are “our people” in several circles of writers, photographers, and educators with whom we love hanging out, and who inspire us. And we enjoy being surrounded by a growing number of what sociologist Mark Granovetter calls “weak ties:” people with whom we might have a stimulating conversation when we bump into one another on a hike, and that’s about it.

Finding your people. The realization that we didn’t know anyone in Portugal before we moved here worried my Mom. You have got to have your people. Yet somehow, Kathy and I (neither of us particularly extroverted) were not worried. And things have worked out. We have joked a few times over the past few months that we had never been this social — and it’s not just our many friends from Canada making a stop to visit us in Porto during their vacation travel. It wasn’t instant, but we have been fortunate to find our people here. And while initially, the majority of the people we were meeting were not Portuguese, that has been changing as well.

Language fluency might help, somewhat. The next level, as we imagine it, may gradually present itself as we get more conversant in Portuguese. We have written previously about the challenge of mastering this language (full of grammar rules and even fuller of exceptions to those rules), but we are sensing a cultural element here, too. We see Brazilians hang out with Brazilians, we see immigrants from different countries mingle with other immigrants, and we see Portuguese people with close connections to other Portuguese people. Perhaps that’s the power of a common culture, the humour you grew up around, or shared life experience. Most of the time, we see people connect around values and interests. And we cherish those connections.

Building your circles may take time. Connecting with people is about proximity and opportunity and language and so many other things. You click with some, less so with others. I imagine that’s the same anywhere you go, or move. Not everyone moves at a time when they are ready to widen their circles, and not every place offers connection easily or generously. Sometimes the language gets in the way. Other times, the interests, humour, or social codes do not line up. Or a person arrives tired, guarded, grieving, overwhelmed, or simply unsure how much of themselves they are ready to offer. Until the conditions are right, there can be lonely stretches. Give it time.

Do not replace your circles, expand them. The trick is not to lose your “strong ties” from where you had lived before. This is why we cherish all the apps that help us stay connected with childhood friends and past colleagues, sharing our life adventures, and getting regular glimpses into theirs. Then, when we manage to visit in person over dinner or coffee, it feels like we had never left. For me, more frequent visits to Slovakia helped revive connections that had been “online only” for way too long.

Sometimes, social circles shift. The way Kathy and I see it, our social circles have shifted in good ways with our move. Not simply expanded, though that has happened, too. To me, “shifted” captures it better, as we carry forward many old friendships, we get pleasantly surprised by new ones arising, and we learn to appreciate the social aspect of belonging. Especially as you, as well as your social circles, evolve with time, openness, attention, frequent check-ins, and a joint pursuit of shared interests.

The gift of liminality. Perhaps that is part of the strange gift of being neither “there” fully anymore, nor really “here” yet. Living “in between” helps you notice what still anchors you, what no longer does, and what, often unexpectedly, unfolds over time.

How are you handling the ups and downs of relocating? Tell us about your journey.

She also looks ahead to Season 4, and the question that’s been getting louder the more we talked about home: Who are you, once you get there? Specifically, how does a big move change your creative self?

We hope you enjoy this season finale. We’re taking a short break over the summer and will be back in the fall with all new episodes exploring creativity and relocation.

When we visit friends “back home” in Canada, whiffs of fantasy linger when aspects of our move get revisited in conversations. The idea of living in a place like Portugal evokes dream-like images of a beach vacation with no return date. No responsibilities, just sun, sand, and unlimited cervejas. Our friends do not even pose it as a question, it’s a given: We escaped reality and teleported into this amazing and enviable life!

Well, yes, sort of, and … You guessed it: There is more. Remember Anushka, one of the early guests on our podcast? Growing up in India, she had visited Vancouver before she moved there as a graduate student. She visited in summer, so she got to know Vancouver as a sunny and warm place. When her studies started in September, days got shorter, rain came, and the city suddenly felt different. For months! Anushka was busy getting set up, buying groceries, cooking, meeting people, finding her groove in her university program, searching for a job … She was far from everyone, feeling lonely.

So yes, we love living in Porto, and the beautiful, summer days are awesome. That’s likely how you’ll see it when you visit as well, and we are happy to take you to our favourite sites (including beaches), and help you make the most of your time. And, if you stay longer, you’ll see us in our daily routines, wearing hoodies in the drafty indoors, giving up on buses that just don’t come, frantically using the translator app as we run errands, waiting months to hear from government offices about various paperwork, teaching past midnight across multiple time zones, waking up to water leaks in the middle of the night. Waiting almost three years to move into our new apartment, because … we don’t really know anymore. Everything takes time, and people just won’t let it upset them. That’s how life is: awesome, and a bit messy. There simply is more to living in a friendly and beautiful place than you might first think.

The Creating Self

The fantasy is reinforced by what we see on social media and in travel brochures. Somewhere between the sea air, the slower mornings, and the curiously photogenic coffee, we are being sold the idea that overseas, you become the kind of person who finally paints, writes, takes photographs, makes pottery, keeps a sketchbook, or says things like, “the light today is marvellous” to neighbours over your morning espressos.

And that does happen sometimes. We know people with stories like that, and a version of that is how Kathy’s life has unfolded since we have moved. Keen on letting go of the 9-to-5, she quickly embraced her creative side. She is now the proud author of a memoir based on a humanitarian mission she joined in Kashmir some years ago, and a unique tête-bêche book on the lives of her parents before they were her parents. Writing that book also prompted a quest to help others capture their parents’ stories.

Based on the stories of most people I know, a move does not suddenly turn you into an artist. Yet, a change of scenery and slowing down can help loosen some of the fears, demands, inherited roles (and the sense of obligation to stay in them) that had kept us living small and reactively. A new place somehow makes it more possible to live a life on our own terms instead, which often includes some form of creating what we love.

And while “creating” may certainly mean producing art, to me, this term has another meaning, a broader and perhaps more important one: I think of it as actively shaping my life, its rhythm, how I am productive, how I contribute. It is a sense of self that feels more deeply my own. More chosen. More alive. And as a result, more fulfilling.

Many of us may have the seed of creativity in us, it just may not have been given a chance to grow. There was always something more important to do, more pressing, more serious. A career. Prestige. Money. Pleasing. Living life on someone else’s terms.

Your creativity may have shaped your work, perhaps as you contributed ideas inside roles defined by your employer, or by cultural expectations. You may have led teams with creativity: organizing, motivating, and diplomatically surviving in unwelcoming, inflexible, or outright disrespectful systems. You may have infused your creativity into your family life: how you raised your children, planned activities, managed a crazy schedule, and approached conflicts. Much of it requires ingenuity — but it tends to be creativity in service of expectation, pressure, keeping things together (sort of), rather than being a creative expression of you, your passion, your own sense of wonder.

The Free Self

That is where relocating may become so interesting, with a move thrown into the mix of other life changes. Think of a person who leaves full-time employment, or steps away from a role with which everyone associates them. Perhaps they become a consultant, or a freelancer, or a digital nomad (or an influencer, I suppose), reducing work to part time. They may even be living the four-hour workweek dream. Somewhere along the way, their children become independent, the mortgage is paid off, and there is the itch to see what else there is to living. All the pleasing, proving, rushing, over-functioning, staying small simply for the sake of keeping safe suddenly loses its appeal.

Over the past year, Kathy and I have heard our podcast guests describe all kinds of relocations: some eagerly planned and keenly chosen, others accepted with reluctance. The moves may have been motivated by work opportunities, lifelong dreams, or family necessity. Regardless, a big change may finally open (permit, even) new possibilities.

Creativity did not come out of the blue when we moved to Portugal. We both have been enjoying photography for years, and we weren’t new to adding a bit of a creative touch to daily routines: calling into meetings while walking around a park; sending students on little quests around the campus; turning the balcony into a wildflower garden; or incorporating our own photography into virtual background scenes.

Yet the new setting did provide more nourishing conditions for creativity. We have been encountering more beauty in ordinary life, we observe a lot of life unfolding in public places, we notice more textures. As Kathy likes to say, photography became a way of seeing the world more slowly — including when all we have with us are our mobile phones. Wandering through neighbourhoods, we pause for streetscapes, façades, and shadows, and we invite the changing moods of the ocean into our days. Tile workshops and gallery visits have to do with the appeal of the new culture, but also with taking part in (in the tiniest of ways) keeping old cultural practices alive.

The Applied Self

In contrast to Kathy’s switching the lights off at her full-time job, and jumping into a life of creating, our move did not have the same effect on my professional life. I love what I do, I just told myself a few years ago that I wanted to be selective about work, focusing on pursuits I find meaningful and energizing. So I switched from full-time employment to contract consulting and teaching, and I love it. Since the pandemic, most of my work has been online, so when we moved, not much changed. I continue to serve my Canadian clients and students, gradually adding new ones here in the EU.

The move has enriched my work, and it may have stretched my sense of self, and how I apply myself creatively. An interesting part of it is the wider range of traditions and social norms I am working with, such as much more formal ways of addressing older and more senior colleagues, but also a bit of a creative licence in how I go about doing things, not being “from here” and all. That part works for me, as it reminds me of how in different places, people had developed ways of communicating and relating to one another that simply fit the place. All of it stretches my mind without feeling offensive.

As I close, let me tell you a bit more about Kathy’s writing. What has been especially moving to witness is how writing has become her way of meeting life more fully. It has become both a mode of expression and of discovery, reflection, and connection. Through writing, and through engaging with circles of fellow writers who may be exploring poetry, memoirs, dreams, personal stories, and all kinds of imaginative expression, something important has opened up. Writing, or photography, painting, music, or any creative outlet really, is not a hobby or something you do because others do it. It is a deepening into a part of self that may always have been there, but that now has more room, more community, and more reason to come forward and blossom.

Might this kind of creativity be a move towards choosing a truly self-authored life?

Every week, Relocurious brings you a podcast episode featuring a unique story of someone on the move, or a reflection post like this one. We’d love to hear how you are handling the ups and downs of relocating. To start a conversation, would you tell us a bit about your journey?

Buy me a coffee?

What makes Nerida’s perspective so compelling is the lightness she brings to questions that feel heavy to many people: Where is home? Where do I belong? Rather than holding tightly to one place or one answer, she has developed an openness to new cultures, new versions of home, and new opportunities as they come. In this episode, Nerida reflects on how moving early in life shaped her relationship with attachment, planning, and belonging — leaving her free to say “yes” to new possibilities.

To me, one of the loveliest gifts that relocating offers is re-enchantment: re-igniting the childhood sense of wonder about the world. I do not mean the grand, cinematic performance with violins swelling in the background and everyone suddenly getting enlightened about the meaning of life. I mean is the kind of wonder that makes your world feel vivid again. The kind that returns texture, scent, and a fun bit of surprise to ordinary living. The kind that offers a welcome antidote to the greyness of functional life, in which it may be so easy to forget to be in awe and delighted now and then.

Finding Bliss By the Ocean

I grew up in a city some 2,000 kilometres from the nearest ocean. So when I first found myself on the Atlantic coast of New Jersey in my twenties, I was mesmerized. I would sit on the beach for hours each day, taking in the sounds and scents of the waves, feeling the little spray in the air, staring in awe at that boundless body of water connecting all continents. The sense of privilege of just sitting there was immense.

That summer brought wonderful experiences, fun adventures, and new friendships. I had not occurred to me that leaving the ocean behind might be the hardest part of that summer coming to an end, but it was. Amazingly, just a couple of years later, I was back. This time, on the Pacific coast of British Columbia. Oceanfront walks and bike rides instantly became the highlights of my new life as a grad student. Over time, I, like many others, settled into routines: work, family, driving everywhere, and the occasional determined attempt to have a sensible bedtime. But all that just amplified that sense of calm, vastness, and humility that the occasional walk along the beaches, weekend trip to one of BC’s islands, or ocean kayak outing with friends brought back.

My delightful love affair with the ocean continues in Porto. There is something almost absurdly rewarding about riding a bike along the ocean beaches, or walking from one small town to the next on the old wooden boardwalk, with the vast Atlantic opening beside me. And just picture those summer sunsets! BTW, whenever I am back in Vancouver, a walk around the 10-kilometre seawall in Stanley Park is a must for precisely the same reason: The air, the light, the scents are magical. No setting other than the ocean gives me the same sensation of freedom, freshness, and infinity.

Perhaps it has to do with my growing up in a landlocked country, but the ocean still has the power to stop me in my tracks and make me stand there in complete awe every time. I admit, I do like that positive overwhelm. And I find that relocating can bring about a very similar sensation: With beginner’s mind — free of any ideas or beliefs about what the new place is, or should be — we look more carefully, we linger, and we notice fine details. We appreciate the magic. (I cannot think of a good reason for the world around us to turn ordinary, simply because we have let ourselves become busy.)

Enjoying the Company of People

Like many of our friends, Kathy and I were drawn to Portugal for its climate, safety, and simpler living. But what we have come to appreciate even more, once here, is the way people inhabit public life. Everywhere you look, people navigate toward common spaces. They meet at street-side restaurants, in plazas, on beaches, along the river. Meals are enjoyed with friends, often outdoors, and with admirable resistance to hurry. City workers, like much everyone else, start their day with a shot of espresso at a corner café. Many restaurants’ hidden backyards are like little garden oases. People walk a lot, ride bicycles, admire architecture, and go about their days with a clear sense that life is better lived in the company of other humans and a bit of fresh air.

It feels good to have your days unfold around other people, in places that are lively and welcoming. A resident cat gives a local restaurant an instant feeling of home. A string of party lights over a patio adds warmth and intimacy to a weekday evening. At sunset, a park may fill with people sitting on the grass, sharing wine, watching the sky change colour, sharing in the collective appreciation of simple living. There is something deeply nourishing about being among people who are not just passing through, but who are helping make a place feel lived. That, too, feels like re-enchantment to me.

There is also something reassuring about seeing different generations share the same public spaces. In many places around the world, life seems segmented: children here, older adults there, workers rushing somewhere else entirely, each group orbiting in its own lane. Here, there is more mingling. More overlap, more shared humanity. The result is a warm feeling of togetherness, and a sense of belonging. You are a part of something both bigger and beautifully natural, enjoyed in community with others.

Taking Delight in Beauty

Beauty is worked into the fabric of ordinary life here. In many places in Portugal, slowing down to admire azulejos on buildings and calçadas underfoot brings a small but steady pleasure. These are not merely decorative extras, nor just practical walls and pavements doing their duty. They create a sense that function and beauty need not live in separate realms. A pavement can be useful and inspiring at once. A street can offer surfaces for driving, walking and dining, while also telling a story, and inviting people to slow down just enough to notice the unique history of each place.

Parks, too, seem designed not only for movement, but for presence and sensory reward. Along with paths, there are benches to sit on, flowers and rose gardens to admire, varied trees offering texture, colour, and shade. The sights and sounds of elegant fountains, ice cream stands, and families of peacocks may startle children into delight, and offer adults a welcome break from screens, tasks, and meeting rooms.

Distinct from homes and workplaces, these deliberately designed ‘third places’ are genuinely shared: by residents, visitors, groups of cheerful students, photographers, even magicians. (We are always on the lookout for a fellow well into his retirement years who tours the town with his pop-up magic show, adding a little burst of wonder to an already lively day.) In plazas, parks, and promenades, children, adults, retirees, and groups of tourists pass one another. Strangers smile, nod, sometimes share tables.

As I see it, watching the world go by in stimulating settings that are filled with people makes for rewarding and connected days. Your days need not always be private, closed off, and efficiently managed. Life can also be visible, textured, and beautifully shared.

Moments of Gratitude

No place is perfect, and relocation may not bring pure delight. There are bound to be moments of frustration, mismatch, and grief, and days when life admin flattens the spirit. There are forms to fill in, systems to decipher, misunderstandings to survive, and occasional stretches when all your energy goes into “trying to sort stuff out.”

But all that is figuroutable and overcomeable, and I am grateful for the way relocating has sharpened my senses. It has helped me notice what nourishes me: the ocean, public life, beauty in ordinary things, and environments that offer delight and wonder.

Whether it is admiring the patterns in tiles, daydreaming by the ocean, hearing the chatter of neighbours lingering over a meal, or simply taking comfort in a place that feels unapologetically alive, that restorative pleasure can do wonders for the soul.

For me, that is no small thing.

Every week, Relocurious brings you a podcast episode featuring a unique story of someone on the move, or a reflection post like this one. We’d love to hear how you are handling the ups and downs of relocating. To start a conversation, would you tell us a bit about your journey?

Offer a token of your appreciation

When Darren joined the Canadian Foreign Service, it set in motion a series of international moves that would shape the lives of his wife Heather and their son Nick as well. Across three episodes, we hear each of their perspectives on the same family relocations — revealing how differently shared events can be lived and remembered.

In the first episode, Darren reflected on relocation through the lens of career and public service. Next, we heard Heather’s experience of moves with young children, and creating a meaningful career for herself. This week, we meet Nick, one of Darren and Heather’s sons, who was just a toddler when he moved for the first time.

Part 3: A Life in Motion – Nick’s Story

In this final episode of our three-part family series, we hear from Nick, whose childhood unfolded across continents, cultures, schools, and friendships as his family moved through his father’s career in the Canadian Foreign Service.

Nick made his first international move to Honduras as a toddler – long before he had a say in the matter. But it was a later move, around the age of 10 or 11, that proved more difficult, as relocation began to collide with a growing sense of identity and belonging.

In our conversation, Nick reflects on the tension between disruption and possibility. At an age when friendships and familiarity matter deeply, moving can feel like a loss — bringing frustration, grief, and resistance. And yet, over time, those same experiences can open unexpected doors: new interests, new communities, and a broader sense of self.

Nick’s perspective highlights how repeated moves can foster adaptability, perspective, and a unique kind of freedom — the ability to start over and create something new. Together with Darren’s and Heather’s stories, his voice completes a layered portrait of what relocation looks and feels like from within a family — and how differently it can be experienced across a lifetime.

About Nick

Nick works in technology partnerships, with a current focus on data activation, integration, and agentic AI. In his spare time, he enjoys snowboarding, fussing over his cat, and actively participating in Vancouver’s music scene as a performer, promoter, and co-founder of an event production group and party series called Step Out, which he runs with his partner, Leah.

Having moved multiple times before eventually settling in Vancouver, Nick developed an appreciation for starting over and creating new realities for himself — a skill that continues to shape both his professional path and personal growth.

These steps are manageable in part because they are anticipated. They are the sorts of things people mention in conversation, or we read about in blog posts. They are not trivial, but they do not feel threatening, either. We understand that we have to do them. We may even enjoy doing them. There is something satisfying about learning new habits when they fit the story we have been telling ourselves about the move.

What interests me are the unexpected bits. The ones we had not seen on people’s pro and con lists, that sound almost petty when spoken aloud, yet somehow they have more emotional force than the larger and more obvious steps. The unexpected ones can rub against our identity, or dignity, or sense of competence. They are not dramatic enough to qualify as a crisis, but neither are they trivial once one has to live with them.

Learning the Language

Moving to Portugal meant learning the language. Despite trying textbooks, lessons, small talk with neighbours, progress has been slower than we would like. People here are kind and efficient. We may start a conversation in our beginner’s Portuguese, and before we get far, the other person switches to English. It is understandable and helpful. It just means that conversations get rescued before real stretching can occur.

Once in a while, someone remarks that if we are going to live here, we really should learn Portuguese — and we absolutely agree! It’s just that comments like that can land more heavily than one might expect. They land on top of the effort, frustration, embarrassment, and self-reproach that are already there. We are not refusing the language; we are inching towards it, looking forward one day to engage more fully.

I am not someone who has neglected languages in life. I learned Slovak and Czech at home, that was easy. I mastered English, in part because of my parents’ foresight to get me started early. I have functional German and Russian. I don’t know what’s so maddeningly different about Portuguese, but it is going slowly. Despite that, a part of me is longing for a symbolic nod to our efforts, just to know people know we care.

Social Norms

As I was growing up in Slovakia, my Mom cared a great deal about manners and etiquette. She wanted to raise a gentleman. There were ideas about how a man shows respect to women and older people. Hold the door. Walk on the left. Offer the seat. Carry the bag. Enter the elevator first (if it is not there and you step into sudden death, it is better that the man be the one swallowed by the void). This was the moral architecture of ordinary life, simply what one did if one had been raised properly.

In Canada, the same actions had different meaning. Acts of respect could now read as patronizing, unnecessary, odd. Holding a door open met with discomfort. Offering to carry a bag prompted a reply suggesting that the other person was perfectly capable of carrying it themselves, thank you very much. Kathy, my Canadian wife, found my insistence on trying to place myself on her left while walking needlessly complicated. It was as though I were imposing a mysterious traffic code onto an ordinary stroll.

Even simple daily actions like taking a bus or metro can get unsettling. The world makes little jokes about Canadians being too polite, but I appreciate it when a young person offers their seat to someone older, or to a person travelling with a small child. Curiously, in Portugal, I have yet to observe such behaviour. Instead, seniors carrying bags stand in the middle of the aisle, while youngsters sit glued to their phones, mindlessly scrolling and swiping. Are newcomers like me to challenge such norms?

I don’t know about you, but I find this sort of thing … destabilizing? It is not just about learning different local customs. It is that the behaviours you associate with respect and decency lose their moral clarity. You are no longer simply asking, what do people do here? You are also asking, what counts as respect, care, and equality here? And why are these core human considerations different here from other places?

How do I stay true to myself without burdening others with a script that came from my childhood, my place of origin, my Mom’s watchful eye? No doubt she still quietly notes me not walking on Kathy’s left, not always being the first one at a door to open it, not placing myself between her daughter-in-law and potential elevator death!? Those things matter in her mind, and I understand that: I had been shaped by those same beliefs! And, the same acts may not carry the same weight elsewhere. What now?

The Neighbourhood

Before moving, we had read accounts from newcomers to Portugal complaining about dogs on the loose everywhere, barking incessantly. On our arrival, we were pleased to discover that where we live, dogs have been a non-issue (at least in terms of barking; dog owners not picking up after their dogs is another matter). But the surprise has been street noise. Day and night. Motorcycles revving on even the shortest straight stretch of road as though the rider has been waiting all day to greet the neighbours.

Then there is the abundant honking. The shorter honks are generally directed at distracted drivers as the traffic light turns green, while the special, long honks are reserved for delivery vans triple-parked and blocking vehicles, lanes, and garage entrances with impressively casual confidence. But of course the true impact is on the residents trying to enjoy an afternoon nap with an open window (and people trying to teach, or take, an online class). Complementing the honking, there is the crosswalk signal outside our bedroom window, producing piercing beeps through the night.

None of this qualifies as tragedy, but I am curious about the cumulative effect of small irritations that keep attacking our nervous systems. Does people’s friendliness and the sum of all of our positive interactions outweigh the annoyances in our environment? You do not have to be unusually sensitive for this to matter; what surrounds us affects us. Perhaps these small, ambient stimuli shape our daily experience, and nightly sleep, more than we might imagine. The question is also one of social acceptance: Have noise, unpredictability, and acting inconsiderately towards others become OK?

Work Stuff

Before we moved, my boss assured me I can do my work from Portugal. That changed a month after our arrival. I was also keen on contributing my expertise and experience locally. As a contractor, not employee, to honour our family obligations and to live life more on our terms. Yet employers here are not keen on project work being done part-time or off-site. Would it have made sense to think of the destination for our move in terms of access to work? Or make professional connections in Portugal first, and then move? I might indeed approach such work stuff differently if we were to move again.

Surprises like these are not merely about logistics. They carry psychological weight; they affect how we live. Work is more than income: It is usefulness, contribution, and identity. Moving with the expectation that these things will still be available, only to find that they are harder to access than anticipated, can easily cause disappointment. And it can easily seep into how we experience the whole move — and ourselves in it.

Not Knowing

Our challenge with relocating may not necessarily be that we encounter difficulty. It could be that some of it comes from angles we did not know to examine. We prepare for the obvious differences, we discuss climate, bureaucracy, cost of living. But the more subtle forms of friction may be the ones that tell us most about ourselves. They show us where we are more attached, proud, morally rooted, reliant on meaning and expression than we knew. Many of us may never have explored these before moving.

Isn’t it curious how emotionally charged unexpected annoyances can become? Why is that? What exactly gets touched when a stranger comments on your language skills, or when a gesture of courtesy lands differently? When your professional identity has nowhere obvious to go? These are not inconveniences; these are mismatches between our habits of mind and the self-identity images we hold and the new reality around us.

Discover Yourself

So I wonder how all this may point towards what might help us. As Kathy and I concluded when we first started Relocurious, it may be useful to ask not just the usual practical questions about the exciting move we are planning, but to ponder a few of the more psychologically informed ones as well. Here are a few you may consider:

• What kinds of friction affect me most — and how do I show up at those times?

• What do I need in order to feel competent, dignified, rested, useful, cared about, at ease?

• What assumptions am I making about work, language, social connection, or daily living that deserve to be tested more rigorously before I build a future around them?

• What might I be underestimating, simply because it sounds ‘small’ in theory?

Being Practical

You may choose a daily life in your new place that involves intentional reflection on both the practical and the emotional. The practical stuff may be easier to start with:

• Look for friendly places (and faces) to practice your new language. Be kind to yourself, but get going early. When things are not busy, a server or store clerk may be open to exchanging a few sentences with you — tell them you want to try. You can get more creative as well: Someone we know is taking a course about AI in their new language, not just to learn the technology, but for the opportunities to practice their language skills.

• Explore different neighbourhoods, looking for those that check most of your boxes. If you are someone who gets stimulated by people and social gatherings, look for a plaza with outdoor restaurant seating and events. (A theatre near us sets up open-air movie nights in the summer.) If you prefer peace and quiet, a little street away from touristy areas and major roads may be what you are looking for. Spend time in the area before you commit.

• Expand how you approach work. Venturing out to professional events may lead to new connections and opportunities. (Mine has led to conference invitations, teaching, and dinners with new friends.) Local colleagues can help you figure out unfamiliar systems. Staying in touch with colleagues ‘back home’ may help you learn about remote roles or new initiatives early. Every conversation is an opportunity to advance a relationship.

Getting Emotional

Finally, it can be useful to note the distinction between the events in the world around us, and how that reality gets reflected in our emotions, as well as thoughts and actions:

• Emotions arise when something we care about is at stake, such as our values. Seemingly minor things, like unexpected deviations in social norms, can carry major weight because of what they touch or trigger in us.

• Disappointments can easily turn into verdicts about the whole move, or about yourself. Disappointments results from judgments of difference: between the imagined and the actual, or between the past and the present.

• As you become more at home in your new place, differences will diminish, and disappointments will dissolve. With emotions back in check, it will be easier to notice, and enjoy, the things that got you excited about moving in the beginning.

Your relocation may not be a dream becoming reality just as you had imagined. It may be a gradual unfolding of what in the dream was fantasy, what was wisdom, what was wishful omission. Where you have moved may indeed be right for you, even if parts of it initially rub painfully against who you are. Notice starting to feel like you belong when you find ways to meet those surprises with more curiosity than self-blame.

Every week, Relocurious brings you a podcast episode featuring a unique story of someone on the move, or a reflection post like this one. We’d love to hear how you are handling the ups and downs of relocating. To connect and start a conversation, please complete this simple form.

When Darren joined the Canadian Foreign Service, it set in motion a series of international moves that would shape the lives of his wife Heather and their son Nick as well. Across three episodes, we hear each of their perspectives on the same family relocations — revealing how differently a shared experience can be lived and remembered.

In the first episode, Darren reflected on relocation through the lens of career and public service. In this episode, we hear from Heather.

Part 2: A Life in Motion – Heather’s Story

While Darren’s work determined the family’s postings, Heather’s experience of relocation centered on building a life within each new place.

With every move, she helped create stability and continuity for the family — establishing routines, building community, and helping their children navigate the emotional realities of leaving one home and adapting to another.

At the same time, Heather was also shaping her own path. Over the years, she built a rewarding career for herself while adapting to the constraints and opportunities of life across multiple countries.

In our conversation, Heather reflects on:

• The importance of making decisions together

• Helping children process loss and adjustment

• Balancing the excitement of international life with the practical considerations of moving a family abroad

• Finding purpose and identity while repeatedly starting over in a new country

Her story offers a powerful inside view of the quieter work that makes international family life possible.

About Heather

Heather Johnston is an educator, trainer, and interculturalist. She has worked as a special education teacher in Canada, a volunteer English teacher in Malawi, an in-country orientation coordinator in Honduras, and an intercultural education specialist for the Canadian International Development Agency and Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. She has also taught online for UBC. She is a diplomatic spouse, mother of three boys. She has lived in Canada, Malawi, Honduras, the US, Egypt, and Ghana. She self published a book called Please Be Upstanding about her time in Ghana. She also has a rather large bead collection.

Links:

Please Be Upstanding: Letters from Ghana - Book

For months, job postings got bookmarked, school ratings compared, travel sites reviewed. The “what if we moved?” becomes a “maybe,” until the exciting “we are doing it!” day arrives. Flights have been booked, suitcases packed, and everyone is ready!

From the outside, it is one happy story. Beneath the surface, excitement mixes with anticipation, uncertainty, wondering. Our most recent podcast interview with Darren is just the beginning: Three unique, deeply personal journeys are about to unfold.

The Illusion of Shared Readiness

The person initiating the conversation about a move often carries the idea long before anyone else can see it clearly. They have a desire, a drive, a motive. They have been rehearsing a future in their mind. When an opportunity presents itself, they are ready. The new role makes perfect sense, the opportunity aligns with the longing. Let’s go!

For Darren, movement had become almost a rhythm: a life lived in two- or three-year chapters in various places around the globe. He would write the exam, accept the posting, and begin packing. Each move had the same forward energy in it. Darren lived the sense that if he didn’t step into the opportunity, he would always wonder what might have been. And things would always work out somehow. The constant flow would become predictable, even comforting, and life would be … good.

If that were your life, and your vision felt this coherent, wouldn’t you assume that the rest of your family were feeling the same excited anticipation for the moves? Travel the world, meet people, make new memories. Who wouldn’t want a life like that?

But families are not always synchronized swimmers. While one partner is getting energized by the idea of relocating, for another, the move may be a stretch beyond the comfortable or curious. And young children admittedly have little, if any, say in moves.

Darren’s wife Heather agreed to the relocations. She chose them as much as he did. And yet, her first morning in a new country did not involve a desk waiting with her name on it. She was in charge of an empty house that did not feel like home. Her days unfolded along tracking down delayed suitcases with all of the family’s belongings, buying curtains, installing light fixtures. The same relocation that launched one rewarding career required invisible labour on the part of the trailing spouse.

The challenges that awaited Darren and Heather were not the same, and they were not of the same magnitude. And perhaps the two of them were not equally ready, or well equipped, to step into them. Despite their loving alignment, the enthusiasm for the move that they had shared initially played out unevenly once they arrived.

The Quiet Weight of Following

You are a loving partner, and you can see that the opportunity your spouse has been presented with makes sense to pursue. You support the decision to move, suppressing your hesitations. You may tell yourself those are small and temporary; once you arrive, everything will click into place. Getting to belonging just calls for some patience.

Time does its work. But being the follower isn’t something that just happens; it involves active, inner work. You end up rebuilding your identity in a place where you first need to find your footing, while your spouse may already have theirs.

In the upcoming podcast episode, Heather describes those early days when Darren left for his work at the consulate the morning after arrival, while she navigated a new language, a new city, and the small, practical frustrations that can quietly accumulate and become too much. She, too, eventually built a meaningful career in intercultural work and, arguably, it might not have come to be, had the family not relocated.

Stretching this way may feel like both growth and strain at the same time. And when the family acknowledges the quiet labour of following (rather than brushing it aside with “You’ll be fine” or “This is obviously worth it”), the move becomes less solitary.

The Child’s Rupture, and Re-rooting

For the child, the story often lands differently still. Children’s worlds are often held together by invisible threads: the best friend who sits beside them in class, the soccer field that gets them out of bed rain or shine, the teacher who understands their humour and occasional mischief. When relocation is announced, the sense that all those threads are going to be forever lost may be hard for a child to bear.

Darren and Heather’s son Nick (his story coming up two podcast episodes down the road) remembered being ten or eleven, leaving behind cherished friendships, and feeling something close to fury. He longed for the comfort and excitement of the special, magic places that his friends got to keep. At that age, the move did not feel like an opportunity. It felt like an unwanted and unwelcome interruption to life.

And yet. The same child who resisted the move later found himself riding horses near the pyramids, producing electronic music in Cairo, discovering that soccer translated across borders. The rupture slowly gave way to competence. In a few months, Nick would find his footing again: new friends, new rhythms, new versions of himself.

Children re-root. Not because the move is easy, but because adaptation becomes a muscle. The child who once feared that life as they knew it was over may grow into the adult remarkably comfortable embracing the unknown. Not despite the early disruptions, but perhaps thanks to them (and to those who had sparked them).

Relocation as a Mirror

Relocation exposes our wiring. Some of us are energized by the unfamiliar, keen on constant movement, discovery, and self-reinvention. Others build meaning slowly. Big changes are not necessarily unwelcome, but they demand time to reflect and integrate.

Darren spoke of trade-off: deep roots in one place versus shallower roots in many. He learned to live with the sense of saudade, always missing somewhere. Heather spoke of deliberately building community, of being taken under a new acquaintance’s wing in those first bewildering days. Nick discovered, over time, that each move helped him redefine himself, stepping into a slightly different version of who he could be.

Relocation holds up a mirror and asks: Who are you when you move? How do you meet uncertainty? Do you lean toward it? Brace against it? Quietly endure it until it softens? …

If you are the one initiating the move, consider how your clarity of vision may need translation. What feels expansive to you may feel like loss, or identity threat, to someone you love. Share your thoughts, invite conversations, seek to understand other perspectives. Every conversation is an opportunity to strengthen a relationship.

If you are the one supporting the move, consider that your hesitation is not weakness or disapproval or lack of love. It is caring, curious wondering, longing for more detail, and for greater certainty and comfort for you and the others you are moving with.

And if you are the child (or as you remember being the child), consider how endings and beginnings often travel together. It has been said that the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page. Read the whole book, staying curious about all the magic that the whole world has to offer to you and your family.

A family relocation is rarely one journey. It is a constellation of transformations unfolding at different speeds, in different hearts. When those transformations are spoken aloud, compared, and honoured, the move becomes more than someone’s wild idea or pursuit of a passion at a cost to others. It can become a shared act of becoming.

Could that, rather than the new job, or the new city, be your family’s true destination?

Every week, Relocurious brings you a podcast episode featuring a unique story of someone on the move, or a reflection post like this one. We’d love to hear how you are handling the ups and downs of relocating. To connect and start a conversation, please complete this simple form.

When Darren joined the Canadian Foreign Service, it set in motion a series of international moves that would shape not only his career, but the lives of his wife, Heather, and their children. Across three episodes, we speak with Darren, Heather, and their son Nick individually to understand how the same relocations were experienced from three very different vantage points.

Darren moved for work.
Heather moved as a partner.
Nick moved as a child — before he was old enough to choose.

Together, their conversations reveal the nuance, complexity, and emotional layers of family relocation: questions of agency, belonging, identity, sacrifice, and adaptation. What does it mean to share a life in motion? And how differently can the same experience be lived and remembered?

Part 1: A Life in Motion – Darren’s Story

In this first episode of the series, we hear from Darren.

Darren’s story of relocation began long before his diplomatic career. Having grown up between countries, movement was already part of his identity. Later, after teaching in Malawi and Canada, he joined the Canadian Foreign Service.

Rather than one defining move across borders, Darren’s life unfolded through a succession of postings — from Canada to the United States, Honduras, Ghana, Egypt, and beyond — before eventually returning to Canada.

In this conversation, Darren reflects on:

• The importance of shared decision-making

• The trade-offs embedded in career-driven mobility

• The challenges of feeling a sense of belonging in each new place

• The ongoing longing for a place you no longer live

His perspective offers a thoughtful look at what it means to build a life shaped by service, movement, and responsibility, and how those choices ripple through a family.

About Darren

Darren Schemmer grew up in Canada, Germany, and the United States. After teaching in Malawi and Canada, he joined the Canadian Foreign Service in 1989. He served abroad in Egypt, Honduras, Kenya, and at the Organization of American States, and later as High Commissioner of Canada to Ghana and Ambassador to Togo.

Since retiring from the federal government in 2014, Darren worked for three years as Executive Director of Simon Fraser University International and has served on the boards of four non-profit organizations. He and his wife now live in Vancouver, with their three sons and two grandchildren nearby.

It began, as these things often do, with an innocent thought: The next task on our relocation checklist is to register at our local health centre. The purpose: To be able to make use of public health services, such as book an appointment to see a doctor. The prerequisite: Being residents and having our health numbers assigned. Check, check.

If you are new to Relocurious — the podcast and posts about the emotional side of moving — you might not know that Kathy and I moved from Canada, infused in the rhythm of how things worked there, to Portugal where, invariably, lots of things are different. The nearly three years since our move have been about re-rooting in the new place: figuring things out, getting established, and gradually feeling at home in our new community. That said, our focus in this post is less on Portugal, and more on how experience emerges as humans and human-created systems interact. Perhaps these reflections will resonate, wherever you live.

I ran a mental checklist in my head, and felt reasonably certain that we had what was needed for a successful mission. We had walked by our nearest health centre before, so we knew where to go. We had also recently taken a photo of the posted working hours. ‘Confident’ is too strong a word to describe how we felt, but we were ready, determined, and optimistic. Naïve as well, though that didn’t come to light until later.

Trying to Make Sense of It All (One Step at a Time)

We had been told that once you have your health number, all you need to do to access health services is, register at the health centre nearest you. Well, the “all you need to do” bit turned into a saga, with our experience unfolding along a series of attempted and occasionally actual visits to both existent and nonexistent health centres.

Here are the facts of our royal runaround experience, as best I remember them. (We’ll get to the thoughts and feelings that these sparked, and our resulting wants, shortly.)

#1: We went to the health centre nearest our home. It was daytime on a weekday. Not lunchtime, not a public holiday. The centre was closed. No explanation was posted. Among the signs that had been taped to the building’s entrance, there was one that said: Unless you are already registered at this centre, go to your next closest one.

#2: Google Maps showed the location and phone number. No one answered. We walked. This stop, too, featured a collection of notices. One of them, dated 2014, said: Please walk right in. Next to it was a notice that stated that the office was permanently closed: You can be served at this other health centre, some distance away. We took Bolt.

#3 was open! The security guard asked about the purpose of our visit. He pointed to the ticket dispensers (a digital one for white tickets, and two tear-off-a-ticket ones with yellow and blue tickets). We got blue tickets. After a short wait, the person at the counter stated that new registrations are processed on Fridays. It was a Wednesday.

#3 again. We had some time a couple of Fridays later, so we were back. Blue tickets, short wait. At the counter, we were asked for our address. And we were promptly told that where we live is not within this health centre’s catchment area. We would be served at yet another health centre. The employee gave us the address, and we left.

#4. This centre was farther yet from our home. We got there by Bolt. Got numbers, and approached the counter when called. We asked for patience with our very limited Portuguese. The clerk rolled her eyes, and gave us registration forms to fill out. Name, address, health number. The staff said we would be registered within two weeks.

Two days later, the eye roller called, and said the centre does not serve our address. Their doctor determined so. I asked for the address of the centre to go to, and wrote it down. It sounded familiar. As soon as the clerk hung up, it struck me that it was the address of #2. Yes, the nonexistent, permanently closed unit we had already been to.

You know that sensation when you wonder whether life is just a test? As I stared blindly out the window, it crossed my mind that the true purpose of the system might not be to register us, but to test our determination. Or self-control. Or cardio.

Over time, experiences like these ripen into fun anecdotes that we can use to assure friends that their you-won’t-believe-what-happened stories actually are believable: We’ve been there. But they leave an impression. They can spoil your day (or week, or months), and they make an impact in terms of how we learn to relate to systems and the invisible power holders behind them. I’ll take ‘this is how we’ve always done it’ as an explanation, but don’t try to sell it to me as an excuse. We can do better. Sure we can.

Pondering and Wondering (The Four Sides of Human Experience)

Gervase Bushe, professor of leadership and organizational development at a university where I used to teach, studies human experiences. He offers a way to break them down into observations (what actually happened — such as the series of events in my runaround), thoughts (how we interpret or judge or make sense of such observations), feelings (the emotions the experience evokes in us, and how it can throw us off), and wants (the choices we have in what we — individually or collectively — do next).

The experience I described above (as observations) might further break down like this:

Thoughts: If you are like me, being sent around in circles with no end in sight is not what you expect, or appreciate. As you try to make sense of things, you may begin to question yourself. Not great for your self-esteem, self-efficacy, or mental well-being. You wonder what you are missing. You cannot imagine what might cause simple tasks to get so complicated (or why someone would not prevent them from becoming so). You wonder about the unclear, contradictory, circular messaging. And you question the confidence with which obviously incorrect information is given. Again and again.

You may also ponder the disrespect shown to you and others seeking to accomplish everyday tasks. You know that someone has figured out how to do this better, because you have tasted it elsewhere. When proven practices exist, why not implement them? Do people not see the problem, know the solutions, feel uneasy about the bizarre reality, want to make things work, care about me, the next person, one another?! You get the idea. Your thoughts about something like this can quickly spin out of control.

Feelings: Even before thoughts arrive, our bodies respond with emotions. Whether you feel mad or sad, your initial (and idealistic, as it turns out) optimism has turned into confusion. Your feelings have gone on the roller coaster of irritation, deflation, and eventually mild (hopefully mild) existential fatigue. Emotions can get overwhelming, unhelpful, wasteful. But in terms of how we experience the reality around us, feelings are just as real as the observed and interpreted (and occasionally 100% unappreciable) words and actions (and equally so inactions) that we observe in the world around us.

Wants: Interestingly, not everyone gets to wants. A person may get stuck in thoughts (eagerly sharing them with friends, neighbours, the poor person at the counter of the wrong office), or they may be overpowered by emotions (this may not be the first time this is happening to them, and the person may value their time, sanity and order more than the system would seem to). But once our emotions have had the chance to cool down, and we have sorted through our observations and thoughts, we may be well served by identifying a want, so we can move on: What’s next — and how do I get there?

Is There Another Way to See It? (Yes, But You Need to Shift Your Mindset!)

Now, if all of this strikes you as being a tad reactive, perhaps that’s because it is: You notice something, label it as a problem, try not to overreact, just make it go away, and live happily … until your next errand? How easy it is to get trapped living this way! Whether we feel offended, annoyed, or simply robbed of time, the experience is uncomfortable, so we want it to be over. The thing is, though: Unless we shift our mindset, we will almost certainly have a similarly miserable experience next time.

So try a little experiment to train your mind to notice more of what is going well, and look for ways to interpret events in constructive, positively challenging, playful ways.

You may find yourself entertained by noticing (like I did) that the person who smiles the most, speaks fluent English, and is actually keen on helping is almost always the security guard. Does it have something to do with their training? Have they lived overseas? Are they less burdened by the inefficient system? Or, have they found that their little expressions of care are what’s actually most rewarding about their job?

Or, you get philosophical: Noting that the system exhausts you in a couple of visits (like it did me), what may it do to a busy parent with a full time job who can’t take a day after day off to tour random offices? How does an elderly person, or someone in a wheelchair, move through a system like this? And how do the staff at these offices handle the work and the clients day in, day out? No wonder you rarely see them smile!

Your more psychologically curious mind may take you in another direction yet: What does a workplace like this do to the staff? Can optimism survive in rigid systems? Is the royal runaround how the system is intended to work? What purpose might it serve? When no one ‘owns’ a dysfunctional system, how can it be changed? Am I as a newcomer experiencing things differently from someone who had grown up here?

The Twist (Your Little Treat for Reading All the Way Here)

Ready to let your mind play even more? What if the system is not ill-designed or broken, just misunderstood? Maybe you just thought it was intended to get you signed up for the overloaded public health system. What if its true function is completely different, and its impact greater? Could it be mischievously architected to help with:

• Employment, by creating more job opportunities for local residents?

• Onboarding, by providing a free scavenger hunt to help you get to know the town?

• Social cohesion and social capital, by prompting you to meet and interact with more people, since you are new to town and in need of friends?

• Community integration, by nudging you to do something about your Portuguese?

• And ultimately, health promotion, by getting you to walk all around this hilly town and enjoy fresh air as you amuse new friends with your health centre hunt stories?

Then a question about the purpose of it all hits you: Did you go to all these health centres because you needed something, or just because someone (or a checklist) had said you should? Are you actually in need of any health services? And are you sure the office you are eventually supposed to ‘arrive at’ actually exists!? Maybe the idea of a health centre ready to serve you is just a myth! (I truly don’t know at this point!)

Tomorrow (What Will You Make of It?)

Some days, relocating feels like planting roots. Other days, it seems like a futile effort to make sense of weird systems. It may also bring profound realizations and shifts. I keep walking, breathing fresh air, connecting with people around me, practicing my Portuguese, keeping a positive attitude. I’ll get registered with a health centre when I actually need it (assuming the beast exists). For now, life is good. (It really is!)

We may run into each other on a walk along the river, or at a local gallery. Or at a café, if you are a coffee lover like me. I mean, I don’t think I’ll be running errands tomorrow.

Buy me a coffee

Every week, Relocurious brings you a podcast episode featuring a unique story of someone on the move, or a reflection post like this one. We’d love to hear how you are handling the ups and downs of relocating — to reach out and start a conversation, please complete this simple form.

Maria, a Romanian educator, anthropologist, improviser, and poet, set out with a clear plan to move to Canada. Instead, unexpected events gradually shifted her path toward an unplanned settling in Portugal.

Shaped first by the pandemic and then by a long stretch of uncertainty, Maria’s journey became less about arrival and more about letting go, recalibrating, and finding her footing again. In this deeply personal conversation, she speaks about the difficult work of releasing old plans and re-taking control of her life, and reflecting on the quiet realization that she has, in fact, arrived. If you’ve ever found yourself suspended between places, identities, or possible futures, this episode may feel familiar – and, we hope, quietly reassuring.

Links:

Maria’s Website: https://meadows.today/

Viola Spolin Improvisation Method: https://www.violaspolin.org/

Center for Courage & Renewal: https://couragerenewal.org/program-calendar/

A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life - Book by Parker Palmer

The Genius Myth - Book by Michael Meade

Living Myth Podcast

I left my hometown in my twenties. It wasn’t with a ‘watch me conquer the world’ smirk. There was nowhere in particular I needed to be, and I had no urge to prove to anyone that I ‘made it’. I wasn’t collecting achievements or chasing status, or even a better future. I was simply ready to live an adventure: curious, keen on expanding my horizons.

I was keen on making the opening move in what became my lifelong game of chess. I get intrigued by what life might feel like on the other side of a move, so I step there. I also don’t need the full game board revealed in advance. I follow invitations (some small and casual, others consequential), explore, and let the next move emerge from there.

An interesting noticing: Put me on a project with unclear purpose, fuzzy roles, and poorly designed systems, and I tell you, uncertainty and I are not gonna be friends. But, not knowing my next move rarely troubles me when I am choosing it. Agency helps offset my yearning for unknown and complex things to declare what they are.

My initial ‘chess moves’ took me to Germany, Italy, and New Jersey. As curious peeks into the world, they enabled me to get a feel for who I might be — anywhere, just on my own terms, please! It was intoxicating: joyful, expansive, light. Those summer moves involved jobs, yet they were still my true ‘enjoy freedom’, perfect-weather adventures.

Testing Hypotheses about the World

It has been a passion of mine to try to make meaning of the world (and people), with unexpected insights emerging all the time. My daughter Petra has a real talent for observing: As a child, she wouldn’t pester adults with endless ‘why’ questions. She’d run mental experiments, form hypotheses in her mind, and test them by watching.

By the time I moved to Prague for a year, I was ready to test hypotheses outside my head, in the ‘real world’. I wanted to experience life directly, the way the characters in the novels and poetry books lining our family shelves seemed to do. I wonder now, had those books been quietly teasing me all along: You know, you could try this yourself?

Being a student in Prague was intentional, it was ‘about something’. It also inspired the moves that followed. I nearly didn’t go: I had a job waiting, and it would have been sensible to take it. But, that move, at that point, would have dulled something in me that mattered. So I declined the job, in favour of expanding life’s horizons in Prague.

Another noticing: A non-move can be just as powerful as a move! Before Prague, a teaching job mischievously popped up. With no teaching credential, no textbooks, and a principal who wondered how he ended up with me, I invited my young students to play. And that year, they, and I, discovered how delightful playful learning can be!

The years in Vancouver offered a playground for appreciating life while testing what I love to pursue and what I don’t. I had an abundance of well-behaving days: purposeful, productive, fulfilling. I graduated, led truly impactful projects, became a dual citizen and a father. And then, over time, the life that once felt like a gift … grew routine.

Life’s Moves … Figureoutable and Overcomeable

Portugal brought a welcome new opening. By then, I had frameworks, language, years of reflecting on development, leadership, well-being. I was confident I knew how to play this game. Portugal smiled politely at my foolishness, making its moves: bureaucracy valuing patience over intelligence, and systems serving randomness beyond fun.

A professor remarked years ago that my crystallized intelligence was higher than my practical intelligence. Portugal tested that theory daily. On bad days, I was impatient and irritated, even a tad stubborn. (Kathy can confirm.) Systems that didn’t cooperate felt personally offensive. When did uneventfulness become my measure of a good life?

A noticing: I like simple, sensible, predictable systems that work. In Canada, they often are so, and I had come to expect them to be that way everywhere. It took time for a good day to become one where I am at peace with systems being merely figureoutable and challenges overcomeable. Maybe that’s the way the system here knows to plays chess.

Your Next Move

Over to you: What’s your next move? Once your relocation is done being mostly an adventure, are you open to experimenting with noticing? How will your life be when familiar scaffolding falls away? How are you with discomfort? What helps you on days that misbehave? Keep noticing, until you figure out the game, and come alive again.

If there’s a mischievous lesson in all of this, it might be that life will always serve us challenges, and we get to choose how we step into them. We can get mad, sad, humble, analytical, creative, or open to embracing what counts as a good day now. Sometimes, the days in our new place gently tease us into appreciating living a bit more playfully.

So — how has your day been so far?

Born and raised in Germany, Charlie first ventured out into the world at 14, when a semester in Australia planted the idea that she was capable of adapting to — and even thriving in — new places far from home. What may have began as something “daunting” soon turned into excitement, curiosity, and confidence, eventually leading her to study in Sweden, complete graduate studies in Canada, and spend extended time backpacking through Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Now living in the Cayman Islands and beginning what she calls “her adult life” — in a committed relationship and with her first full-time job — Charlie reflects on what “home” looks like after a life shaped by movement.

Bad days, by contrast, had always been … a bit rude. They had a mind of their own, they would throw you off, they would make it impossible for you to be productive and happy with yourself. When you were having a bad day, your boss noticed, your partner noticed, and the kids noticed, all of it making the day even more miserable. You may have found comfort in naming the culprit: A useless meeting that went on for too long. A stupid new project. Someone too eager about something, or not enough.

If your employers were anything like mine, you would be surrounded by frameworks and coaches to help you notice how you respond under pressure, why too much ambiguity or pointless change does not bring you joy, how being trusted to make a system better turns you on. You got to know your strengths and your style, and you knew how to keep most of your days on your side. You got the hang of yourself.

And then you made a big, exciting move — and your days stopped behaving. You may not have noticed it right away, caught up in the excitement and adventure of relocating, meeting new people, and figuring things out. Yet somehow, your days in the new place have grown different from the good old days “back home”. It hits you that days are no longer as easy as they once were to classify as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

Across borders, days get mischievous. They refuse to follow the familiar rules. They don’t care how capable you think you are, or what your accomplishments used to be. These days are deeply unimpressed by your proficiency or fluency, in anything at all. They trip you up over every little thing: A form to fill out that is not making any sense. A website that was and now isn’t. A sentence that comes out backwards. A perfectly innocent interaction that leaves you feeling like it’s your first day riding a bicycle.

When a good day eventually comes, you are delighted and astonished. You notice it quickly: It’s when all goes beautifully well. The clerk just takes your form and nods. Your new login and password are accepted. You don’t feel foolish, or at least not before lunch. Don’t such days feel wonderful? It’s like when the warm sun comes out after a storm, the air is fresh, and the world is suddenly, curiously at peace with itself.

The unexpected side effect of moving is that getting to enjoy good days can actually take effort. Effort where things used to be simple and seamless and sort of self-driving. Effort where you want to feel carefree and joyful … If your happiness and sense of well-being depend on things going smoothly, you may catch yourself thinking that you are not doing all that well at this whole living abroad business — are you?!

But then, of course — if you’re paying attention — a new kind of good day shows up. It’s not perfect or polished. It may start with something going silly. It may give you a reason or two to sigh. But it leaves you with a sense of tiny forward movement: The right word came to mind. You figured out a new system. Maybe you embarrassed yourself, yet you made a friend in the process. You didn’t give up, use bad words, or run away when it was rather tempting to do so. That’s got to count as a good day!

Surely more not-so-good days are yet to come, they creep up quietly: A sequence of tiny confusions. A sense that everything requires way too much effort. Or a wondering whether the move was a good idea at all. Yet, what if the main thing that makes these ‘bad’ days so is the story we tell ourselves about them? That we should be fluent in the new language by now, that getting a parcel through customs ought not be so painful, that surely someone is changing the rules on us on purpose … Is this all just a test!?

When a day like that hits you, what do you do? Scream? Slam the door? Close yourself in? Eat a bag of cookies?

If you were to pause for a moment and think of comforts that proved helpful in the past, you might choose to make your favourite meal. Or go for a long walk with no destination. Or listen to a playlist that knows who you were before all this. When you let go of the idea that the world is conspiring against you, and reach for what’s familiar and comforting, you can keep yourself from turning into a grumpy, brittle version of yourself. Let the world’s silliness become just the silliness you laugh about.

The ultimate reward comes when over time, you stop demanding that days prove their worth by being easy, tame, without surprises. You start noticing when a day wants to be a friend, when it helps you become a little more at home in your own skin. No doubt you still cherish the effortlessly good-to-you days when they show up, but you no longer insist on all your days being that way. You watch each day unfold as it may.

Relocation, it turns out, is not always interested in making you comfortable. It makes you work for it, and keeps you on alert. But that just means you notice more, ponder more deeply, and make peace with how the world is now. Each new day invites you to pay attention, and grow a bit through the experience. And if you let it, the day may teach you to admire how good life is, including in places you never thought to look.

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In this episode of Relocurious, we’re joined by Kristy Halvorsen, whose life challenges conventional ideas of relocation, relationships, and purpose.

After serious health wake-up calls as a firefighter-paramedic, Kristy let go of most of her belongings, hitched up an Airstream, and just got on the road. What began as an experiment in freedom became a way of life she calls coddiwompling — wandering with no destination.

Living off-grid and migrating with the seasons, Kristy carries her sense of home with her. She speaks candidly about loneliness, trust, saying goodbye, and staying open when nothing feels certain.

Kristy is the author of Perfect Unfolding, a reflective adventure memoir about a year that “broke her open” and reshaped how she lives. This conversation invites us to rethink what home can mean, and whether it might be something we carry, rather than somewhere we arrive.

Links:

Kristy’s Book: https://perfectunfolding.com/

Kristy’s Website: https://kristyhalvorsen.com/

P.S. Would you like to share your story of moving across borders? Get in touch.

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We didn’t have a “plan” for managing our social connections, but Michal and I were reasonably confident we would maintain connections with our closest family and friends back in Canada, while making new connections in Portugal. And we certainly have been, though some things take time.

It all may be easier if you’re moving for work or school, as you quickly meet people and are often absorbed into social circles through those environments. For the rest of us, though, meeting people who may become friends requires more intention.

There seems to be a common trajectory many people follow when they move to a new country. They start by seeking out social groups specifically for foreigners who speak their language. I saw this often in Canada, where new immigrants looked for communities that shared their language and culture to ease the transition. So it wasn’t surprising to find that here in Portugal, new arrivals do the same.

When you first arrive in a new country, finding people who speak your language and have travelled a similar path can feel like oxygen. So during our first few weeks in Porto, I eagerly sought out and attended meetups for English-speaking women.

Over time, however, I noticed that while those connections were comforting, they didn’t light up the part of me that wanted to grow and learn in this new place. I realized I was after different types of connections, so I stopped going.

Instead, Michal and I began looking for photographers, photography groups, and people offering photo walks. By joining activities centred around a hobby we both love, we began meeting people — locals as well as other foreigners. There’s something about coming together around a shared interest that breaks down barriers and sparks connection.

Shortly after we arrived, I also started attending writing groups. At first, these groups were primarily made up of foreigners, though over time more Portuguese writers have been joining as well. One of the groups has since grown into a social circle that extends beyond the writing sessions, and real friendships have formed.

As these new friendships began to take shape, I noticed an unexpected emotion alongside the gratitude: guilt. A quiet worry that by making space for new people, I was somehow betraying old friendships that still hold a deep place in my heart.

But thankfully, the friendships I’ve been building in Porto haven’t been erasing the ones I carried with me. They exist in different rooms of my life, connected by memory, care, and shared history.

Psychologists have long noted that friendship often grows out of simple proximity and familiarity — seeing the same people in the same places, without trying too hard. It’s not unlike how easily we make friends at work, where connection is built less on instant chemistry and more on repeated interaction over time.

Guests on the Relocurious podcast have also suggested joining fitness classes or hiking groups as ways to make local friends. Centering social connection around physical activity feels good, and it can also minimize language barriers where they exist.

In October I joined a photography workshop with a Portuguese woman I met on a photowalk. The workshop was conducted entirely in Portuguese. Did I understand everything? No. Did I understand enough to enjoy a wonderful day of creativity with a new group of photographers? Absolutely.

The idea that closeness forms more quickly when people learn, struggle, or create together is also grounded in research. The Self-Expansion Theory, developed by Arthur and Elaine Aron, suggests that relationships deepen when people engage in novel or challenging activities side by side.

I think it’s worth reiterating that new friendships don’t form overnight. There’s often a period where you meet many people before you find your community. But when you do, those relationships tend to form around who you are now, in your new home — not who you were before.

That can be unexpected, and it can also be deeply fulfilling, as you settle into the new version of yourself, in your new place.

If you’ve moved, or are thinking about moving, what interests or curiosities might help lead you toward your next community?

We would love to hear from you!

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The planner’s words of wisdom? The lifestyle you are dreaming of is available to you — if you are open to relocating.

Fast forward ten years, Kathy is reflecting on the enthusiasm and curiosity that guided her (well, our) quest for finding a new home, and the sense of gratitude that living the dream has brought. Since our move to Porto, Portugal a couple of years ago, we have not only appreciated our welcoming community and the ease of exploring Europe, but also how much more connected we now feel with our families — both in Europe and back in Canada.

This conversation takes us to Kathy’s reflections on attachments — to places, pursuits, and people — and to the notion that putting your intention to relocate out to the world can help you be accountable to yourself for the steps you take, and it can help others support you on your journey.

Ready to share your relocation dream, or how you experienced your own move? We would love to meet you and hear your story. Get in touch.

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It’s a simple question, but one that can feel surprisingly loaded. Certain moments — when faced with a language barrier, unfamiliar foods, or when holiday customs look slightly different — have a way of bringing the idea of home into sharper focus.

Michal and I often ask guests on the Relocurious podcast where home is for them these days. Over time, we’ve noticed recurring — but very different — ways people relate to the concept. For some, home remains firmly rooted in their place of birth. For others, it’s wherever they are now. And for many, it’s not about geography at all.

With the idea of “home” on my mind, I began noticing references to it everywhere, often pointing to entirely different meanings. Even a short list of common idioms suggests just how varied the ideal of home can be:

• Home is where the heart is. — Is home where the people you love reside?

• There’s no place like home. — Is there only one home, defined by comfort and familiarity, the place you keep returning to?

• Make yourself at home. — Is home wherever you feel welcomed?

• Home away from home. — Is home comfort and familiarity, even in a new place?

• A house is not a home. — Is home more than a physical space?

• Home is where you hang your hat. — Is home wherever you happen to be?

This reflection isn’t about defining home. Rather, it’s about noticing how varied and complex the experience of home can be, particularly for immigrants.

On a personal level, I tend to subscribe to the “home is where you hang your hat” philosophy. Even temporary accommodation can feel like home if it offers the security and privacy you need or wish, along with the basic amenities for daily life. Even better, of course, when the person, or people, who matter most to you are with you there, too.

It’s a view of home rooted in the present moment, wherever I am, shifting as life shifts. That idea fits — most of the time.

Last spring, when I was launching my memoir, I held events in a few cities in British Columbia, Canada, places that I have long considered home. I contacted the local newspapers, requesting inclusion in their “local events” listings. When one editor declined my request, explaining that Nelson was no longer my “hometown”, I was indignant. I had lived there for more than a decade, and my parents and brother still live there. Who was this person to tell me where I could or couldn’t call home?

Once the initial sting wore off, I realized how fluid my own use of the word home really is. If someone from British Columbia asks me where I’m from, I say “Nelson” — it’s where I went to high school, and lived as a young adult, and where my family still lives. If someone from another province or country asks, I say “Vancouver” — there’s a fighting chance they will recognize it on a map, and I lived in municipalities around Vancouver for more than twenty years. But in my day-to-day life now, Porto is home. All those statements are true. The definition shifts, and I’m comfortable with that.

For others, that kind of flexibility wouldn’t work at all. For some, home is where they are from, where they were born or grew up. A strong culture, a shared language, or deeply rooted childhood memories can create such a powerful connection that even after decades abroad, that place still holds emotional weight. For them, “going home” means returning to that original country or city. Their idea of home remains fixed, even as life moves on.

Some podcast guests have shared yet another perspective: Home is something internal. A feeling they carry with them wherever they go. Home, in this sense, is something they actively create for themselves. Their sense of self, values, routines, and identity travels with them. Sarah Linhares spoke eloquently about creating her own sense of belonging when she felt pulled to her mother’s birthplace on the island of Madeira.

Tineke Ziemer also spoke of a connection, a strong bond to Scotland the very first time she visited. To her, Scotland feels more like home than Canada — where she has lived her whole life — despite there being no clear path to immigration for her.

Catherine Stratton shared a different experience. The place where she had happily lived and raised her family was home — until it wasn’t. As her children moved on with their own lives, and many of her friends also relocated away, Hoboken, New Jersey no longer felt like home. With an empty nest and fewer anchors keeping her there, Catherine felt a pull to leave and explore what might come next.

As with many aspects of relocating, especially internationally, there are overlaps, tensions, and shifts in how we relate to home over time. Perhaps you were once certain of where home was for you, but now you’re not so sure. Michal described his momentary disorientation at the airport when a customs officer welcomed him home to Canada, as he was returning from a visit home to Slovakia.

After listening to guests hold more than one definition of home at the same time, or describe how their feelings have changed after each move — or even within the same place — we remain curious about the idea of “home.” Sometimes it feels clear. Sometimes it feels unresolved.

Over the next several episodes of the Relocurious podcast, we’ll be asking our guests deeper questions about their relationship to home, and how they define it, wherever they are in their relocation journey. In the meantime, we’ve been sitting with a few questions of our own:

• When someone asks you, “Where is home for you?”, how easy — or difficult — is it to answer?

• Has your idea of home changed over time, or does it feel anchored to a particular place or period in your life?

• Do you think it’s possible to have more than one home at the same time?

• Is home something you return to, something you build, or something you carry with you?

• Have certain moments — moves, life transitions, or even everyday encounters — made you question what home means to you?

• Does your definition of home shift depending on who is asking, and why?

We don’t have the answers, only curiosity, and a desire to keep the conversation going. Wishing you warmth, and a sense of home, wherever you are.

We would love to hear your perspective and your relocation story. Please comment below, reach out by email, or let’s chat over coffee (we like coffee!).

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In this special episode, Kathy interviews Michal about his passion for travelling, his relocation experiences, and how a lifetime of moves has reshaped his relationship with freedom, belonging, and what it really means to call a place “home.”

In 2023, Kathy and Michal made their new home in Porto, Portugal. To Michal, this place feels both like home and as a gateway to so many places yet to be discovered!

Enjoy his story!

P.S. Would you like to share your story of moving across borders? Get in touch

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