September is a month of moving, of new beginnings…

This year, I moved, and every suitcase I packed reminded me of my previous moves.

Above all, I found myself thinking about the challenges that come with moving to another country.

The first one is making your entire life fit into a 20-kilogram suitcase. Thanks to the weight limit on checked luggage, I quickly learned that the dress I love is not very practical, and that winter boots, because they weigh so much, either have to go in my carry-on or I have to wear them on the plane, no matter how uncomfortable that may be.

However, when you land in your new host country, you realize that the airplane part was the easy bit.

The first reality check comes at customs. If you are lucky enough to have the right passport, everything goes smoothly. But if you don’t, the immigration process that probably started months earlier culminates in you standing in front of an immigration officer who usually has no desire whatsoever to help you.

When you finally arrive at your new home, the challenges are even greater if you have moved to that country knowing that you have a return date to your home country.

Perhaps the hardest thing of all is feeling at home abroad.

At first, it’s the little things.

You find a tomato sauce that reminds you of the one you used to buy back home.

The supermarket cashier recognizes you.

Someone you see every morning says good morning to you, whether it’s the doorman of your building or a neighbor.

You learn the route to work by heart and no longer need to use Google Maps every day.

When you walk through the door, the smell already feels familiar.

And these are just details. What ultimately makes you feel at home is the people you surround yourself with in your new home.

Making friends is easy if you’re in the university world, where you sit every day with young people your age in a classroom for hours.

However, if you have moved abroad for work, making friends becomes more complicated. At your workplace, there will be people of all ages and from all kinds of backgrounds. Sometimes the atmosphere is welcoming and naturally leads to friendship; other times, it isn’t.

When you do manage to make a friend, they are often a foreigner just like you. Locals rarely open their doors to you, or, if you do manage to become friends with a local, it usually takes a great deal of time and effort. They already have their lives established, their groups of friends, their partners, and their own problems.

But it is always easy to find another foreigner who is in exactly the same situation as you: lost and alone. That person will become your best friend within a week.

Because everything has an expiration date, even friendships. Can you build a deep and genuine relationship when you know that you and that person are only going to live in the same city for five months, and that afterwards you may never see each other again?

Surprisingly, the result is that the expiration date, rather than creating superficial relationships, makes everything much more intense.

The countdown forces you not to leave a single museum unvisited, a single plan undone, a single experience unlived, a single food untried, or a single party uncelebrated. And the people who share those moments with you stay forever in your heart and, somehow, in your life.

When the countdown comes to an end, you’ll pack that 20-kilogram suitcase all over again, and this time it will be much harder, because you’ve bought a thousand things during your time abroad, and every object is a reminder of a unique moment you don’t want to forget.

You’ll take one last walk around your familiar places as a way of saying goodbye: the Friday night bar, the café that sells that pastry you love, the laundromat that saved your life when your washing machine broke, the corner where you fell off your bike…

The final hugs are the hardest part. Saying goodbye to the people who have been your emotional support throughout this chapter of your life, and not knowing when you’ll see them again… or whether you’ll ever see them again at all.

Back on the plane, another airport. Will any of these borrowed homes ever become the one that lasts?