I am going to preface this by quoting Roy Orbison – “Only the lonely know the way I feel tonight”.

A year and a half ago I decided it was time to transform my life by moving halfway across the world. The time had come to shake up my life and see what the big wide world had to offer. After all, there has to be more to life than living in an English seaside town with a population of barely over thirty thousand people for your whole life. Anyone else who has lived in a small town for their whole life will understand how fast the years can pass you by. Nothing seems to change in these towns, the same people frequent the same bars and pubs year on year, the shops on the high street are a revolving array of cafés, barbers and charity shops, when one closes the next one opens. Intelligent people of whom you had high expectations end up staying forever and never achieve their potential, some satisfied and some dissatisfied. After almost 33 years of my life, I was one of the dissatisfied ones. Eighteen months on and I sit here typing this from a tiny island, a different tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Bermuda.

Whilst moving across the world has been one of the best experiences of my life so far it has not come without its challenges. The initial challenges of getting set up in one of the world’s most expensive places come with their difficulties, finding a place to rent, sorting out transport, getting registered with various providers for things like electricity, the internet, your cell phone and learning the different cultural norms and expectations in social situations and etiquettes in various scenarios. These can all be overcome relatively easily, stressful as they are within a few months those worries are behind you and your new life begins. There is however one challenge that is not so easily overcome – loneliness.

Before I moved, I thought I would have very little trouble making meaningful connections with people. After all, in my hometown I am fortunate to have a large number of very close friends and people I can rely on. People who I feel comfortable disclosing my innermost thoughts and tribulations to. However, I was very naive to think this way. It’s easy to forget how a level of closeness came about with people who you have known for most of your life. You forget that they were built over a lifetime of experiences together, numerous displays of trust, the mutual interests, the helping each other when needed no matter the size of the task, the laughter, the sadness, the arguments, the thousands of memories. These kinds of relationships take time to build, there is no cheat code, you can’t fill in forms or find answers online to build meaningful connections.

Whilst I’ve made new friends and acquaintances and some of these relationships are naturally getting stronger, they can’t yet replicate the lifelong connections that you leave behind. I’ve met some amazing people so far, some of the kindest and most intelligent people I’ve ever met in fact. I am grateful for that, however it doesn’t stop the sudden and random bouts of loneliness, the days when your new much smaller network of friends aren’t around, the days when you realise how far away from home you are, the days when you’re fed up and the people who you relied on for so many years aren’t about to come and cheer you up. These are the hard times and fortunately for me they don’t come often but when they do come, they often stick around for a few days at a time and leave a pit of emptiness in your stomach, they make you question your choices and make you anxious about your future, they make you wonder if you’ve made the right decision and whether you will ever stop getting this feeling of homesickness.

I’ve managed to find my own coping mechanisms to try and manage these feelings when they do surface, for me exercise is the key. It doesn’t extinguish these feelings by any means, but it does help. Would I love to be in the pub having a deep and meaningful conversation over a pint with one of my best pals right now? Of course I would, however I have to understand that this kind of social sacrifice is the price I have paid in order to better my life in many other areas. I have to keep reminding myself of that when these feelings arise, I have to remind myself that it’s all worth it. That the new people are good and kind like my old people, I just don’t know them well enough yet, I just haven’t yet shared the experiences with them or created the lifelong memories required to build the meaningful connections that humans need.

Whilst this was really just me rambling on and putting some of my thoughts onto paper after having a lonely day I’d like to end it on a more positive note. The universe must have been reading this post before I had published it as halfway through writing it my phone rang and it was one of my best pals from back home checking up on me, making sure I’m doing okay and letting me know I am missing absolutely nothing back home. Oh, and he wanted to know when I’d be popping in the pub for a pint when I go back home for the first time in a year and a half over Christmas. Strange how one phone call can completely change your mood. I’ll let this serve as a reminder of how the feeling of loneliness is only that, a feeling. It is temporary and does go away. Yes, it will come back but each time it does, I know that it is only temporary, and I know that the positive thoughts and feelings I normally have will return sooner rather than later and I can return to being my normal happy self.

Peace and love everyone, peace and love.