It took me 11 years to repatriate back to the US. 11 gloriously wonderful years I had the pleasure of living abroad, making one of my dreams come true but which were also terribly lonely years. I struggled to make friends with Germans, suffered from severe homesickness but was always quickly forgotten with each trip booked. 11 tortuous years constantly debating, “Should we stay or should we go?” as my heart was torn between two countries. Well, December 2023 we finally made the move back to the US, and now I can say, for many reasons, it was the right decision. 

***THERE ARE POLITICAL STATEMENTS IN THIS POST. IF YOU HAVE A FRAGILE EGO AND GET OFFENDED EASILY, READ NO FURTHER. THESE ARE OPINIONS OF MY OWN, FOR WHICH I AM ALREADY AFRAID TO SHARE PUBLICALLY BECAUSE INTERNET BULLIES HAVE NO SHAME IN BELITTING OTHERS. THESE ARE MY OPINIONS AND EXPERIENCES FROM HAVING LIVED ABROAD. AND UNTIL YOU YOURSELF HAVE LIVED ABROAD AND EXPERIENCED ANOTHER POLITICAL CLIMATE, HEALTH CARE AND EDUCATION SYSTEM, YOU HAVE NO ROOM TO JUDGE OTHERS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR KINDNESS. ***

Many of you have read my post Torn Between Two Countries, published in 2016 while still living in Germany, and have patiently waited for an answer to my outcome. Many of you have shared your heartbreaking stories with me and to this day, I still get requests for an answer. Did you stay or did you go? How did you make the decision? What should we/I do? And I want to thank you for sharing your stories because it validated my feelings and helped me to realize I was not alone in this struggle. And as you know very well, the struggle is real. And it is HARD.

There was a minute there we had started the process to move back home to the US in October 2019, but then Covid hit and Trump put a ban on Green Cards and Immigrations, which halted my German husband from obtaining his Green Card. Not knowing how the world was going to be because of Covid, we made the only, but hard decision there was, and that was to stay put in Regensburg. We simply moved into a nice new flat that we loved. I had made the hard decision that GERMANY WAS HOME NOW and I buckled down. Three years after that, the decision to move home could no longer be avoided. So here’s my final answer:

The Decision to Stay or Go

No one ever talks about how hard it is to stay in a country that can be so unwelcoming to expats and immigrants. At one point, I was no longer an expat but had started to consider myself an immigrant. The longer I stayed, the harder it got to consider leaving, coming to the realization that this was home now. But the longer I stayed, the harder it also got to want to stay. Germans can be so unfriendly, unwelcoming and hard to understand, and I’m not even talking about the language barrier. As an American, it can be so cold, harsh and hard to deal with when you have such a California laid back personality, willing to make friends with anyone and talk to anybody. Homesickness is real, and it gets harder as you go, not easier.

No one talks about how hard it is to be your own home and your own family when you choose that life for yourself.

There were many many reasons why we finally jumped at the decision to move home. And it was a now or never kind of decision. Things hit the fan in September 2023 and by October the decision had been made, and plans had been drawn out. This time I meant it. I knew more than anything, in this moment and in my heart, I was ready to move home. I was moving home for me and not out of guilt for missing family events or because my family missed me. I was moving home because I was terribly unhappy in Germany and with the people I had surrounded myself with. “Friends”, Family, Neighbors, Germans. I had had ENOUGH of Germans and the harsh environment I felt I lived in.

I started researching moving companies to ship our belongings to the US and from there everything fell into place. I had the movers chosen, found the right company to ship our dog to the US, and bought our airline tickets. By December 4th, the house was packed up and by the 14th, we were on our way to the US with a one way ticket. 

There were tears of joy that this never-ending struggle had come to an end, and there were tears of sadness. I had found myself here, matured here in my own right, started a family of my own. I was sad to walk away from this special gift I gave to myself, the gift of living abroad. There were tears of fear for the unknown, hating that we were moving to Arizona, hating the political climate we were moving home to. But I could no longer let those be reasons to keep me from MY family. 

I was a hot mess of tears of sadness and anxiety and excitement all rolled into one, bundled in a blanket of depression and sadness.

Why Moving Home Was The Right Choice 

It has been so THERAPUTIC to be a few short minutes drive from my family, who are so sociable and always want to do things together. It’s been so HEALING to speaking English again, never struggling to express myself and never being told anymore that “My husband should correct my German emails” or limited in my job prospects because of my German, or my lack of an internship under my belt, despite having real-life work experience in banking. I have REGAINED CONFIDANCE IN MYSELF, in my ability to do every day tasks in English and independently without having to rely on my husband for translation. I have regained SELF-ESTEEM in my job capabilities and am now making double what I made in Germany, working at a company providing services to individuals with special needs and disabilities, and I feel like I am DOING SOMETHING THAT MATTERS. Best of all, MY WORST FEAR HAS BEEN INVALIDATED: I had thought my husband would eventually resent me for uprooting his life, but it turns out, he LOVES living in the US and loves his job and is finally being paid what he could never make in Germany. 

I sit here now, inching closer to my 2nd year anniversary being back in the States, and I can say on many levels, moving back to the US was definitely the right decision.

We have come to have a love/hate relationship with Phoenix, Arizona and know we will not stay here indefinitely and the wheels are already churning as we consider our next move. We love that there are so many multi-cultural restaurants and exciting activities to do in Phoenix, but we HATE the heat, the aggressive drivers here, the traffic and how we do not have 4 seasons here. My soul dies a little bit every day the temperature is over 75*F. 

Nonetheless, I can say now that there is a peace in my heart I hadn’t felt in a long time.

I’m close with my family, both in distance and in our relationship and that was the thing I needed most. When you marry into a family that never truly understands you, it can feel very isolating, and sometimes hard to understand why they don’t understand you. It was often hard to come to terms that it was because I’m “too American” (whatever the fuck that means) and that “I’m not German.” Nothing screamed more that I wasn’t truly welcomed in this family and that I would always be an outsider with my crazy American ideas. I knew then, I needed to be near my family, who I knew would embrace my husband 100% without questions and judgements. 

Do I Miss My Life Abroad?

You betcha, every day, and every minute. Every road I drive on in the US, I cringe for the crumbling of my country from the ground up. I crave the smooth perfect roads in Germany. Every morning, I crave a fresh perfect croissant and a cappuccino in a ceramic cup with a design on it, not in a paper cup, and where I can sit and admire the Regensburg Cathedral. I miss walking along the Danube, the feel of rain and the joy of each new season. I miss the comfort of a cozy winter tucked inside watching the snow fall. I miss going for a run through the autumn leaves. I miss running and biking. I miss public transportation, especially without the opinion from Americans that if you take public transportation you must be poor and trash. I miss people who cared about being environmentally friendly and actively trying to reduce harmful waste. I miss going for long evening walks with our pupster in the farm fields. I miss the biergartens, and the unique Bavarian traditions. I miss German cuisine. I miss the ease of traveling and the beauty of Europe, when instead I’m surrounded by a minimum of 5 hours of desert in every direction. I miss NOT having a bunch of bro drivers on the road, running people off the road with their road rage and waving their guns at people. I miss feeling safe. I miss the health care system where I could go to the doctors as often as I wanted and never pay a penny other than my health insurance. God knows I need it!

More: Things I Will Miss About Living in Germany

Why Living Back In The Us Is Hard

No one talks about how moving abroad changes your mindset and view on life.

No one talks about when you move back home, how it can feel like nothing has changed at all and people still live in their same little bubbles and their points of view are still very narrow and limited to only America, with no regard to the rest of the world. No one talks about how when you move home your view points are so changed, they may even appear “radical”, “outlandish” and “un-American” and how hard it can be to relate to your fellow countrymen and women, even your own family. No one talks about how your broad new world view can create a gap even between you and your family as big as the Atlantic Ocean and how sometimes, it’s easier simply not to have those conversations. No one talks about how much that hurts and how lonely it can feel when you feel so misunderstood. Especially after living for so many years, isolated and misunderstood, you want nothing more than your own kin to love and understand you better than anyone else. And then you just wish that everyone had the ability to live abroad, just once. Maybe then, they might understand.

There are certainly dozens of other reasons why moving back to the US was a terrible idea, everything from the political climate, the hateful culture here, the amount of ignorance, blatant misogyny and lunatics whipping their guns out at people for their driving skills (This really happened and I saw it with my own eyes). I don’t even feel the need to go into detail about how terrible the health care system in this country is, how much money I shell out between paying for health insurance, paying a copay at the doctor’s office and then receiving a medical bill in the mail. WHAT DOES THE HEALTH INSURANCE EVEN PAY FOR!? I don’t feel the need to go into detail about how women’s rights are being stripped away from them, sending this country back 50 years, nor the hate and malicious treatment of illegal / immigrants who came here looking for a better life.

These were all reasons that KEPT ME IN GERMANY for so long. They were reasons I stayed because I knew HOW GOOD I had it in Germany and what it would mean to walk away from them. They were all reasons why I was ashamed of my country, knowing she could be so much better. The United States proclaims to be “the greatest nation in the world” and yet we are failing as a nation on multiple levels, far behind our other Western allies. If only the hateful political games would stop, if people would take the time to educate themselves, if people took the time to care about others, we could make better policies that benefit the RED and the BLUE and we could live up to that statement. What’s the worst is living not among your own people, and seeing them judge your home country and shaking your head because there is nothing that if feels like we can do. 

When you’ve had the pleasure of living outside of your home country for so long, you get to see your home from an outsider’s point of view.

You are challenged by the very people you live among as to “Why do Americans do that?” And the longer you live in a different political environment other than your own, you realize that to be a “Social Democratic” country is NOT a bad thing after all. Americans need to learn that Socialism DOES NOT EQUAL Communism. It simply means anyone can be rich, but no one should be poor. And we can have an education system that lifts everyone up, not simply those willing to take out 100k in student loans, who will spend the rest of their lives in debt paying it off. We can have a health care system for everyone, where people are not having to choose between health and rent. It also means every day Americans are not stressed out by simply trying to understand the fucking health care system in this country. Maybe, just maybe Americans could then learn to be a little less mean because they won’t be so stressed about bills, healthcare and rent. **Side thought: Did I trade one form of meanness for another?**

Do I Regret Moving Home?

I have my good days and my bad days. A bad day is typically when I turn on the news. I want to stay informed so I try to read and watch the news as often as my mental health will allow. Some days, the empath in me can’t bear to read one more headline or turn on the news. I, for the life of me, can’t understand people’s lack of empathy for others. Some days feel hopeless, and I don’t know what I can do but vote, but donate, but share my experience of living abroad and what it taught me. My hope is that by sharing the experience I had with the German Health Care System will encourage others to fight for what we deserve. My hope is that by sharing an outside point of view, it might spark a conversation of change. 

There were moments as if Reverse Culture Shock slapped me across the face and made me question my decision whether or not it was the right one to move home.  

I have had a few terribly bad days back in the States which shook me to my core. They were moments of danger and fear for my life, and that of my husband and family. Seeing a man pull a gun on another man while on a busy road, from the comfort of his truck with Trump stickers was terrifying as we drove by, fear that if the gun went off he would hit us as we passed. That is NOT the America I left behind. Being shoved by an angry black woman simply because I politely approached her and asked if she would move her car out of my apartment parking spot, and then proceeding to be harassed for the next 30 minutes as she circled my neighborhood parking lot flipping me off was another moment I feared for my life.

America is angry and it is a tense place to live right now, and there are days when it terrifies me. It feels unsafe to approach people because you don’t know how they will respond, or if they are carrying a gun. Becoming re-accustomed to every other person owning or carrying a gun on them it something I struggle with daily. Once you have had the pleasure of living abroad, in countries where you do not need to worry if your neighbor has a gun, is a right we should all embrace. More guns DOES NOT make society safer. And it is possible to have such a society and we should want that. Having grown up in a household with guns, this was a hard lesson to learn, but now that I am stateside, the thought often crosses my mind whether or not we should invest in a gun, for our own safety. But I have to ask myself, when the time comes, would I be able to shoot to kill/injure to save ourselves? I doubt it. But my bigger complaint is why are we promoting more guns so we can have more safety, instead of focusing on what is causing our communities to be unsafe? We should be looking more into the mental health crisis in this country.

Sometimes, living back in the US can feel like I’ve stepped back into the Wild Wild West, and feel like Americans act and behave like a bunch of savages. We feel so uncultured. We look like slobs with our bellies and asses hanging out of clothes, shooting people when we don’t like them or open the front door.

Is this what America is proud of?

What The Future Holds For Us

For all you internet bullies out there who just read the above, you’ll be glad to know that our future in this country is not permanent because life decisions are never permanent. You never know where the wind might blow you next. At least we know we will not stay in Arizona for more than a few more years, but after that we shall see. I’m sensing the Pacific Northwest, but I’m also perfectly happy with a Gilmore Girl season-eqsue town on the east coast. For now, all we know is that we are happy to be back in the US, giving my husband his life experience of living abroad.

I’m also re-discovering the American version of me. I thought she was lost there for a minute, and I was terribly afraid I wouldn’t fit in, which is still partially true.

Living abroad changed me in profound ways. Living abroad changed me in ways I am the most PROUD of who I became in that time. 

I am not the same girl I was before I left. In comparison to that girl, I feel 10x more worldly than her. I took my history book smarts and walked among and through the history I previously had only read about. I spoke to people who lived that history and brought it to life, who speak power to their experience. To travel the world is to live it beyond the pages of a history book. When I look back on that girl who stepped off the plane in 2012, I was naive and immature, moving to Germany on a whim to follow my dream to travel. I had no fucking clue if my dream would pan out. I certainly did NOT do enough research on moving abroad, the ups and downs, the homesickness I was in for and the rude awakening of what the rest of the world thought of the “great country I came from”. We are a laughing stock to the rest of our Western allies. We’ve all been brainwashed to think this broken health care system, an overburdened education system and crumbling roads is the “Great American Dream” this country was built on. I feel so un-American to say that, but nothing could be more patriotic than to stand up and speak out for a better future for our country. And I know family who might read this will shake their head in shame at me, but I am not the same person anymore and you will have to come to terms with that, and for that, I will not apologize.

If You’re Wondering If You Should Move Home Too, Here are Some Things to Consider:

1. Move home because YOU want to. Don’t let anyone guilt trip you into making the move home because “you’ve been gone for so long”, “you miss all the family events”, “we never get to talk to you because of the time difference” etc. 
2. Move home on your own terms. Maybe you’re having an annus horribilis like I had the year before I left. But don’t abandon ship just because the waters got rough and beat you black and blue. Try to get through it, and if things then don’t improve and you know in your heart it’s time to go, then go. But not before your heart tells you. 
3. Move home not because you SHOULD but because you WANT to. 
4. Move home only if you know you have a support system to help you set up back in your native country. And if you don’t have that support system, plan as much as possible before you get off the plane. 
5. Make sure that if you’re going home with more than just yourself, that your partner/spouse/children are all on board 100% because if not, you’re in for a rude awakening.

For other related posts:

One Woman’s Journey to Bliss Through Europe

10 Reasons Why I Moved to Germany

10 Struggles of Being an Expat

10 Things to Think About Before Moving Abroad

WHY It’s so HARD to Make Friends with Germans

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