So... Is the grass greener on the other side? The truth is no, the other side might not always be as green and smooth cut as we thought it would be, because life isn't a simple clean cut fresh lawn, no matter where you are in the world. It takes careful planning and hard work to keep it maintained and healthy. You see... by moving away from home, you realise how precious family and friends are. You realise that happiness isn't always guaranteed, that it's not something you get handed on a plate just by making a big decision. The decision is only the first step of a long hard climb. I think moving away from family is hard, missing out on monumental birthdays or anniversaries but it just takes getting used to. At the end of the day they're family and the smiles every time you go home just get bigger each time because you appreciate every moment with them all the more. The goodbyes are still so hard but with Skype, texts and calls it is much easier to cope with. Home will always be home after all. Yes you still have days where you would do anything to be at home with them, and that's okay, carrying on on your own in those moments just makes you even stronger.
But friends? That's the tough one. Because, I'm sure like you, my whole life I grew up with friends around me. Whether I was playing out in my street with neighbors, or being at school and college I was seeing friends nearly every day of my life. Then when uni comes along, not seeing them as often begins to filter out your best friends from the people you will probably never speak to again. And that's okay, some people will just be like passing ships in the night. But best friends? You can go days, weeks, even months without talking to those best friends but you still know you can text or call them for coffee and just head for a catch up and it's always so nice to see them. And then when you move away from home, those friends become even further away, and that distance means no quick coffee dates, or bumping into them in the street. It requires fleeting meetups if you both happen to be free and in the same city. It means these messages become less frequent, and although you know they'll always still be there, its hard to be a good friend to them when you're not there.
The thing about this is I expected it to be balanced out, that I would meet so many new people and make so many new friends that I would have this great social life and then still be safe in the knowledge that I have my closest best friends at home. But when you move away, and I have spoken to others about their experiences of moving away, it seems it's a general thing that it's actually extremely hard to make friends. The fact is this... at home you have your social circle and go about your day without actively looking for more friends; because your comfortable. Home is the anchor; with everyone and everything being so familiar. You lose that by moving abroad, you have to be proactive to find others wanting to find friends and then you have the issue of trying to find someone you have a true connection with, which is much harder than I thought it would be. If you do meet people you can't leave it weeks or months to message and meet them, it requires a more persistent effort and it's hard to keep up when you're busy with other things; like the common "Life gets in the way". It requires a great deal of motivation and patience to find and make your own social circle when you move to a new place and I guess I never really expected that. I am lucky to have met some great people here, but when you look at the bigger scale of things and compare that to the expectations I had, its really quite different. It's not impossible it's just a bigger challenge, a bigger obstacle to overcome and it's just a slow process. 
And there are a lot of other obstacles to overcome, such as the language barrier; like the scary experience of emergency medical care where they don't speak your language, or when you can't understand the menu or the humiliation when you don't understand when a stranger asks you a question. And then there's adapting to new foods, new transport and place names. It's all a bit like being thrown in the deep end and it's really darn scary. But at the same time it's incredible because you get to know yourself so well. Every moment is worth it... it's one incredible adventure, and it makes you feel so alive. It's unpredictable, like going through a maze where you're trying to find your way through, but you don't know what is around the next corner.
I think my point is, that when you move abroad you have such high expectations that this glamorous, exciting new life will bring you all the happiness in the world, and it will. It's eye opening and thrilling and every new place you discover makes it feel that little bit more like home. It's just that so much change can also bring in loneliness, homesickness, fear, weakness.. and I've learnt that that's okay. It's all part of the experience because if things aren't challenging, then we're not growing. Moving abroad has been the biggest and most rewarding challenge of my life, I wouldn't change it for the world and I still wont. Any negativity I have just encourages me to make changes and make my life away from home so good that giving it up is not an option. I think in your weakest times you see your true vulnerable self and I am not going to let her down by being defeated by obstacles I know i can overcome. There is always an answer, it's just working out what that is and not forgetting to keep looking at the bigger picture to remember how far you have come. We all know we all deserve to be happy, you just need to remember sometimes you have to hike the long walk to the top of the mountain to appreciate the view.
