Homesick – Finding Eden

How to Never Be Happy Again- Wherever You Go

Compaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare, compare, compare. Comparison is the thief of joy. – Teddy Roosevelt

People always say that once you live abroad, you leave a piece of your heart wherever you go, and that will always be true, but trying to compare the places you’ve been and dwelling on the past can’t lead to anything good.

I lived in Italy, got the travel rush and immediately started planning for China. Paperwork took so long that I was miserable waiting at home. I made it to China and ended up not really liking it as much as I thought I would, and started planning for Russia while we were still there. I went home for a week between, and I think it wasn’t quite enough because as open minded as I tried to be about a 2 year commitment in Russia, I really missed home.

Moscow had one of it’s coldest Septembers ever, right when I arrived and I am a desert rat who had just spent half a year in the tropics! It was a tough transition, and it certainly didn’t help that I hit the ground running and went into my first day of work about 4 hours after landing.

I felt stuck, I felt homesick, I felt cold. I was watching my friends posting Instagram stories of the never-ending summer activities I knew and loved in AZ while facing my first Russian winter, and anyone who had to deal with me got an earful of how unhappy I was.

I liked living abroad (I still do), but I think I rushed too fast into another round and then I really leaned into it and made myself feel more trapped and miserable than I really had reason to be.

Between bad management, poor work environment, abusive coworkers, and Covid, it took me about a year to really give Moscow a chance and settle in, and it’s one of the biggest regrets of my life.

Moscow has so much to offer- comfort, convenience, cost, and culture, but I didn’t let myself recognize it fast enough, and now that I finally made it back home, I’m realizing all that I had there and didn’t appreciate enough.

Mindfulness could have solved all of this. If I had addressed my issues head on, I would have escaped a whole cycle of sadness.

Working less, going out more, finding friends and hobbies, and calling my family more also helped me turn it around, but I wasted a lot of time getting there.

Try not to compare, but instead throw yourself into all the best the place that you’re in has to offer!

Living in the US right now is honestly not great – cost of living has skyrocketed, and pay hasn’t improved at all, food culture is not spectacular, transportation is terrible (as always). But my family is here, and there is beautiful nature, I have far better professional development opportunities, and I can speak the language!

I have now been home for 2 months and I am fully settling back in to Arizona life. I miss Russia a lot, but I’m going to do my best not to let missing somewhere else ruin another possibly fantastic experience.

Making Moscow Home

So I’ve been having some major issues dealing with seasonal affective depression alongside homesickness and I made it significantly worse by visiting my warm, sunny, amazing home over the holidays and then coming back in the middle of JANUARY.

In an effort to be more mindful and thankful for my current living situation (and to help mitigate my depression) I’ve been actively trying to notice the really great things about Moscow.

Honestly there aren’t that many amazing things in Moscow- a few cool attractions, but mostly its just really easy to make it home.

Public transportation is AWESOME. I’m hesitant about busses everywhere I go because they have been terrible everywhere I’ve lived. They take forever, they don’t go where you need, they cost more than it’s worth when you can just walk. But the busses here are incredible, especially in conjunction with the metros which are laid out really nicely and run every 1 or 2 minutes!!! Everything works on a Troika card which you can refill on an app and it’s so cheap. And even when you don’t feel like taking public transportation, taxis are SO affordable. Infinitely better than anywhere in the US or Italy at least. Slightly more expensive than China though.

Grocery stores are EVERYWHERE. From the front door of my building I can get to 3 grocery stores in under a 5 minute walk. And within a 10 minute walk I can get to an Ашан megastore (but I think that was just the luck of the draw because there are only 3 of them in Moscow). And I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, you can find practically ANYTHING you might need/want in a Moscow store.

Heating and hot water are better than you could possibly imagine. When we were in Milan, it was SO COLD, but heating was SO expensive, so we never turned it on, we just wandered around our apartment wrapped in blankets. Its way colder in Moscow, so I was worried about our heating bill, but then I found out that the heat is set by the GOVERNMENT?!?!? (Apparently they set the interior temp based on last year’s temps that day, so sometimes it gets too hot and we have to open a window.) The heater in our house doesn’t even have an option to adjust it. It’s always so nice and toasty warm, and all of our utilities together have never been more than $30 a month. Also you know how in winter you always seem to run out of hot water? Not in Moscow. Unlimited SCALDING hot water- instantly. Seriously, it’s so hot you can burn yourself, and I still forget all the time and turn it all the way to maximum hot.

Drying clothes indoors is MAGIC? Because heaters are always running full blast the air inside is super dry. If you put sopping wet clothes on a drying rack indoors, they’ll be bone dry within 24 hours. For reference if you’ve never lived somewhere without a dryer, out on the balcony in the wind in Milan, it still took 2-4 days, and longer indoors. (Side note, dryers are horrible for the environment and you should try to airdry as much as possible! It makes such a difference and it’s way better for your clothes!) This super dry air makes everything really shocky though- way too much static electricity. I work in a kindergarten and I always forget that its so shocky and I feel horrible when I shock my babies on the face or head.

It’s easy, it’s accesible, its cushy, it’s comfy, it’s cheap. I would probably recommend living in Russia if I was being honest! As long as you don’t mind snow and can pick up a tiny bit of Russian, you’ll settle right in!