Grief, Time, and the Pain of Transitioning Between Countries

I woke up one day, a stranger to myself.

It was some two weeks after my move from Canada to Finland. Coming home, if one can call it that. After all, I was born in Finland. But I had lived in Canada for the past 16 years, and I had never felt more Canadian than when I left.

I was in an unfamiliar place — the language was not English, the food was not Asian, and the streets were not crowded, ever. As aware as I was of that, I was more aware of how I no longer felt like myself. Inside, it was dark, cold, and sad — my own soul was a foreign place.

My realization that morning felt like Life had strode up to my bed, seized me by the throat, dragged me up, held me in the air, shook me violently, and snarled into my face, “Grow up.”

The Grief From Moving

It is hard to talk about the grief of moving. This kind of grief does not make a lot of sense, at least in my case. After all, things are going fine. Nothing bad has happened. I chose to move, knowing it would be hard. 

Still, leaving a familiar place you think of as home slams you with all sorts of pain. You miss routine; you don’t know when you’ll see friends again; you realize your relationships might be forever changed because of the distance. You’re uncertain about life ahead; you foresee how much it will hurt to leave here someday, and you know that if you were to go back to where you were before, you would start from scratch again. You feel all the frustration of how vulnerable you are and how bound to place and time you are.

The grief takes its time, too — you cannot just decide you’ve had enough. You can grit your teeth and plough through by doing the next necessary thing. But it wears on, into the months. You start to feel like a burden to the people around you who ask how you are, and every time the answer is still, “I feel bad.” I should be better, you think, but you’re not.

There are three things to remember in the post-move depression, and they helped me immensely.

1. You will feel better, but it’s going to take time. 

It’s going to take a lot of time. There’s nothing wrong with you — you do not have to force yourself to feel happier, and you don’t have to lie to people or beat yourself up for not being okay yet. 

Plants often go through transplant shock when uprooted and repotted. You, too, although your conscious mind understands with logic, are going through shock. You will start sending the roots down again. In time. Just wait it out.

For the first month after moving, I felt like I was bleeding out pools of blood everywhere. In the second month, I had small fleeting moments of happiness, only to realize in shock that I had forgotten, for a whole month, what that felt like. In the third month, I felt like the kind attention I received from overseas friends was some kind of healing balm that had my soul screaming in pain. 

In the fourth month, talking about memories made me feel like I was roughly jabbing at a raw, healing wound. I lay on my bed one evening, listening to upbeat, hopeful worship music, and thought this would be a great time to die. 

In the fifth month, I finally started crawling forward in the things I had to do, but it was as if every movement hurt every joint. Almost as if breathing hurt, but at least it was bearable, in the sense that if I got forever stuck in this mental space, I knew I would survive. 

In the sixth month, I managed to stand, managed to walk, but I would randomly trip on miscellaneous happenings — a friend doing well, a friend doing badly — and would feel kicked down onto the floor again, gasping. 

In the seventh month, I started to feel like myself again, like I could finally peer into the past and future without feeling overwhelmed. 

Now, in the eighth month since I moved, I realize I enjoy things I usually enjoy, and I don’t hate what I hated eight months ago.

It takes time to recover, so show yourself some grace. You will get better, perhaps not as soon as you wish, but you will.

2. You should take care of yourself, even when you don’t feel like it. 

And you won’t feel like it. You will be sad, angry, and depressed, and you won’t want to do what you normally do. 

But it is in creating routines and frequenting the same places and seeing the same people that you build the familiarity you need in order to begin to feel at home. You may not even want that — I know I didn’t. I balked at the thought of making this place feel like home. I did not want another home. Another home means another loss someday. But you must take care of yourself.

In the first month, I cleaned every morning. I did the dishes, watered the plants, swept the floor, and made the beds. 

In the second month, I sat down every afternoon to read articles and write, regardless of whether I felt like it or not. In the third month, I decided to talk to my counselor friend every week. In the fourth month, I bought a gym pass. 

In the fifth month, I went to a young adults group where I could barely offer an opinion because I couldn’t string together meaningful thoughts in Finnish. In the sixth month, I went to the library and the café to read and study. 

In the seventh month, I went to workshops for my job search. In the eighth month, I figured I might as well network on LinkedIn and talk to the school guidance counselor.

Much of belonging is related to familiarity. So while you give yourself time to heal, try making routines. Even if it doesn’t feel like much at first, I promise you will start to adapt to them.

3. God is the most gentle, patient one. 

This may feel at odds with the situation. 

More than once, I screamed, Why? But no matter how circumstances fall or how you feel, God is always there for you, an ever-present help. 

I want to be careful here — God’s help is not just a spiritual fact that you must conjure the strength to believe in at all times. He answers prayers, provides for physical needs, and guides us in real life (sometimes through specific circumstances and sometimes through the wisdom of the Word). He is a personal God. But also — we are not separated from His love, even when circumstances are not going well or when we lack well-being.

It can be hard to keep up spiritual practices when going through hard times, and maybe it’s difficult to trust. Still, God is there for us, and often the best thing we can do is to turn to Him in complete honesty, expressing what’s going on inside us and around us.

In the first month after my move, I could not pray. I sat in silence in the dark, and sometimes I lay on the cold floor. I turned my attention towards God, but I had no words. I trusted my friends would pray for me. 

In the second month, in one of those times when I sat before God even though I didn’t have much to say, I became convinced, quite out of the blue, that God was gentle towards me, even if life wasn’t. 

In the third month, I realized that what I would have hoped for in my neighborhood had been given to me, even though all I had said in prayer was, “You know how to love me.” 

In the fourth month, I started going to church even though I knew no one, and I found the opportunities for connection right in front of me. 

In the fifth month, I read the Scriptures as my counselor encouraged me to, and I felt like they became a constant companion in my meditation.

In the sixth month, I started to feel like I had never been more spiritually well than I was right then. 

In the seventh month, I thought I could feel God with an edge of my soul that was not mind or emotion, like some other limb I had suddenly grown. 

In the eighth month, I started feeling like everything was grace, everything is grace.

One of my friends reminded me that hardships often help us grow closer to God. While I wouldn’t say that difficulty is, therefore, a good place to find oneself in, I realized that processing and feeling grief and expressing it honestly before God is the best way to move through such a time. You’re not alone, and God is always compassionate towards you.

Looking Back on the Transition Period

Even now, talking about this feels like it’s really too much. My mind tells me that all the grief I experienced from the move was just an overreaction. I shouldn’t have felt this way. Who wants to hear me complain about a privileged opportunity I was given?

It is important to share this, though, because many TCKs, and other people, go through the same process. It was invaluable for me to know that this is normal. This is completely normal. You will be okay, and there is no shame in grieving.

As I enter month nine, I feel like I am home within myself again. There’s frustration, anxiety, and lostness at times. One day, I am excited about living; the next, I feel like I have to close my eyes to reality. But I know I am healing because I can be excited about opportunities and I am happy about people, and the future, though uncertain, is no longer dark.

Keep your chin up, transitioning TCK — weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.