Moving Cities and Countries: On Being a Restless Soul

I first moved away from home and family in my late teens, a little earlier than most college entrants. I’d wanted to get out of Texas, where I’d grown up, as soon as possible—which meant my undergraduate years—and I got my wish.

Though as much as I’d wanted it, and as much as I never changed my mind and even today know I made the right decision, I still count that first ripping of self from family and close friends (most of whom also left Houston for school around the same time, so staying wouldn’t have saved us from the change) as my first genuine heartbreak.

I cried for months. I desperately waited for care packages from my grandmother, letters from my friends, and calls from my mom. (Yes, though the Internet existed back in those days, no one used it. And cell phones? Maybe if you worked for the FBI or wanted to carry around a heavy electronic briefcase.)

I don’t know exactly at what point my grief for my former nest of comfort and ease subsided into a normal state of existence, one in which I still feel nostalgia for what I’d had, even knowing that I could never get it back even if I returned, but one in which I no longer cried myself to sleep or wallowed in sadness for days after leaving my family or waving them off at the airport.

But it did.

The process and its aftermath pushed me to grow, explore, change, and gain independence in a way I doubt I’d have managed if I hadn’t yanked myself into the completely unknown, without easy paths back or lifelines of connection. (Then, before today’s connected society, when you couldn’t look everything up as easily or get ahold of someone in the know by tapping a screen, I had to figure it out for myself, including figuring out how to figure it out. I’m glad for having the opportunity, which doesn’t exist for most advantaged kids in most western settings today, it seems.)

The growth and discovery experienced across the initial move and then subsequent moves gave me a thirst to keep exploring, keep moving, keep learning about myself and about other places not simply by visiting—which never gives anyone a real perspective—but by living there. I’d learned that I could maintain contact with the important people via intentionality and that this intentionality, in fact, improved and strengthened and intensified the relationships with the important people in a way that having each other easily to hand never happened, because when someone is just there, you too easily take each other for granted. I learned that, in fact, moving away forces clarification about which people and things really matter, winnows down the complexities of life to leave predominantly the valued elements.

As life is short, a regular winnowing has value, leaving space for further growth for the intake of new things to possibly add to the value-and-treasure trove.

I moved every three years or more often for about ten years, starting in my late teens. I moved around the United States, to Europe and back more than once, and then moved back to Houston for a time, ready to leave London but not sure where else to go and thinking a stint near family for the first time in a long time would be nice.

And it was. But try as I might, I couldn’t make Houston for me. I didn’t like who I was or where I was growing up there—and it didn’t get better when I moved back.

So, though I got stuck there longer than expected on the second go, not sure where to head next and lost in complicated professional concerns, I finally got out.

Will I want to move again in a few years? Hard to say. As of this writing, I’ve lived in Switzerland for more four years—two or three of which feel a little lost due to the COVID times—and I don’t feel a strong urge to move away to a new horizon quite yet. Maybe age and maturity will slow me down a bit, and I won’t feel the need to move as often. Though I do wonder if I’ll still feel that urge to change places, sooner or later.

Probably I will. I don’t feel, at least as of this moment, that Switzerland will be my forever home.

Europe, though, probably will. (I say “probably” because I’ve lived long enough to know that nothing is certain.)

I feel happier, more at ease, more at home, more comfortable in European countries.

As I’ve met other migrants and immigrants and expats, I’ve  met others who feel the same way. Some of us, even if we first moved by necessity rather than choice, discover a restlessness that spurs a need for the continual discovery of self and the world that moving to faraway new places provides.

Some of us, though, do not feel this way at all.

My brother, for example, has lived his entire life in Texas and has told me that he’s never had the urge or interest to move away. In fact, he only moved to Austin from Houston for university; he moved back to Houston straight after graduation. Own a house somewhere else for vacation? Sure. Relocate? No.

What, then, makes the difference between people compelled to move and people compelled to stay? Because I make no value judgements here: I see positives in both lifestyles, even if one’s more for me than the other.

I figure, as with most things, no single reason exists—and not even within just one person. Probably, for each person, a mix of reasons applies.

One hypothesis I have: Extroverts, who pull their energy from regular in-person interaction with their concentric circles of family, friends, and acquaintances, would have the most difficulty completely exiting these circles and then needing to rebuild them from scratch somewhere new, without the circle from which to draw energy in the rebuilding. Introverts, however, pull energy from solitude and, while they usually enjoy other people, they don’t need as many close friends and family members to get the same social benefits as extroverts.

Without question, I fall hard on the far edge of the introvert spectrum, as much as I enjoy being around people. (My brother, by contrast, comes as extroverted as it gets.)

Of course, I’m no psychologist. Call it a hunch as to one of the many possible reasons for the move–stay dichotomy.

Other hypotheses? I’d love to hear them.

Where do you fall on the stay-put to move-often spectrum? What do you feel has shaped you into these place on the spectrum?