Hi there. It’s the first month of year of 2022. By the end of this month it will hit my second year living abroad. So, I decided to reflect on the subject a bit.

It all happened quite impulsively. The year was 2019. I was in the middle of renovating my new apartment in Yerevan. Then like it always happens I received a call from a recruiter. I decided to give it a try for the sake of gauging my strength and finding out where I stand. The process was quite standard: prep, interview, offer. Before the interview I didn’t put much effort to actually think of moving abroad. Though, I was always quite open to it. But the real mental hardship began when I received an offer. That was the time when I realised that “this was it”, I was on the verge of leaving my homeland. Long story short, after discussing it with my family I decided to leave with my girlfriend (now my wife). They all were extremely supportive. I can’t be enough grateful. The idea was to go for fun and adventures, explore the world for ~a year and then go back. So, after bringing the renovation of the apartment to its logical end and living there only for 10 days we pulled out. It was the dawn of 2020.

Moving felt sad. But also the anticipation of adventures and cool life experiences kept our heads up. The process of settling in Amsterdam was quite typical. There were some real frustrations related to crazy Amsterdam housing market but we overcame it. I met my colleagues and was in fact full of excitement. For the first 4 weeks everything seemed to be going fine. I was ramping my new job up and also was full of energy to explore the country. Then The Pandemic hit. The rest about it is history.

We quickly found ourselves in a very mundane and boring reality. Life started to feel like an endless cycle of eating and working. Our only activity besides that was walking in the parks. Not long after, another unfortunate event happened. This time it was in our personal lives, I won’t disclose the further details here. That made us use WFH situation and go back to Armenia for a month. We were there when Armenia got involved in a tragic war. It was and is still horrible.

After awhile we came to a realisation that we had torn apart the initial plan we had of moving abroad in our heads. It needed a revision. Partly it was because we felt we didn’t have any adventures at all. And because I was not sure that I even wanted to go back to the country we have today (not only because of war, it’s a long topic). So, we began to inwardly prepare ourselves to remain for a longer period.

2021 felt comparatively better. We explored Europe and the Netherlands a bit more. Got used to our new routines. Currently, I find walking in the Oosterpark with electro music in my ears and indulging myself with having a snack or fritz-kola in the nearby bar Bukowski exceedingly enjoyable. When longing for a homeland we go to an Arabic neighbourhood :] (insider joke). There we devour the earth’s most delicious Shawarma from Tigris&Euphrates. On a more secular note, I like biking and watching people biking. Especially, watching moms biking with their kids in the bike’s front. We also have a couple of friends here with whom we like to hang out. Although, I have to admit that sometimes I find the rhythm of Amsterdam rather boring. But swiftly enough I start to have contradicting thoughts. As the vibe and ambience of Amsterdam feels weirdly pleasant. I also like the pragmatism and the directness of Dutch people. What I hate is learning their language and the soul-intrusive winds. But don’t pay much attention. In reality Amsterdam is a nice place and nowhere near to an image people outside of NL have about it. Having said that, I have to confess that I can’t value enough the free access to psychedelics here. About it, hopefully, in another post. I also like the museums and those gold sunny days when everyone is rushing out. Dutchies tend to cancel all the meetings and reprioritise everything merely for going out and consuming every bit of sunshine out there. Yeah! that cute and adorable Dutch laid-back culture. Dutchies worship the sun. But they also embrace the coziness the moody weather brings. It also propels reading books. I find myself to have an urge of reading here like in no other place. Irrational yet true. Despite of everything, the experience we had here made us a better person. So, there’s definitely a sense of growth and maturing.

But.

On some lonely winter nights I find myself pondering about the purpose of me being here. I miss my family and friends in Armenia. And feel nostalgic about some episodes of my life in Armenia. I even feel that I used to have a sense or purpose more there than here in Amsterdam. Still, I want to think it’s a misrepresentation of my wistful brain. I miss not having a language barrier and having a feeling of safety. It’s dead safe in Amsterdam. But I’m not about it, you got it. I find myself thinking on topics of national identity and human condition more often now than I used to when I was in Armenia. But, I don’t want to thrust myself in a pathetic corner. So, I rather convince me to think of these matters from just a philosophical point of view. Quote time:

“Where is the character at home? The question bears less on a geographical territory than a rhetorical territory. The character is at home when he is at ease in the rhetoric of the people with whom he shares life. The sign of being at home is the ability to make oneself understood without too much difficulty, and to follow the reasoning of others without any need for long explanations. The rhetorical country of a character ends where his interlocutors no longer understand the reasons he gives for his deeds and actions, the criticisms he makes or the enthusiasms he displays. A disturbance of rhetorical communication marks the crossing of frontier, which should of course be envisaged as a border zone, a marchland, rather than a clearly drawn line”.

Vincent Descombes

I used to think and get depressed on this kind of topics much more often. But lately I began to accept the reality and come to peace. I don’t know yet if it’s good or bad. Maybe, it’s how alienating from a homeland feels like, maybe it’s temporary. But I actually find it quite pleasant and healthy. As a result I don’t want to have hard set plans and want to let life flow its way. I don’t know where I’ll end up eventually. I’m inclined to think of life of being about enjoying every bit of existence. Not in a consumeristic sense. But more by self reflection, learning and embracing the magic of life. And thinking less of aChiEveMeNts. Thinking less of choosing a place to live. Being much more open to experiences. Realising the tininess and the vastness of life. Being useful.

So, happy new year friends! and let the spontaneity make its mysterious play and hopefully bring you more of a joy than suffer.