Welcome to my world!

So you’ll find that this blog is extremely casual. I’m not a professional writer but someone who has just decided to share their thoughts and opinions about life, their experiences, and the world. I won’t share my identity right off the bat, but I think you’ll eventually start piecing a couple of things together the more I write. Personally, I hope I can keep you guessing for quite a while – sorry. 😅

I’m living abroad as an immigrant – the word irks me, but there’s no better way to describe it. I’m a foreigner in a foreign land learning to adapt and integrate into a society that’s not particularly welcoming. I am based in Europe and have been here a while. With this blog, I’ll just be verbalising my life in the hopes that someone hoping to live in Europe can pick up a thing or two before making a jump from wherever they are from – North/South America, Australia, Africa, Asia, or the Middle East – and any other place I may have neglected to mention in this somewhat specific list.

Without any further ado, let’s jump into what this is all really about – being a migrant.

Man, oh man does that word irritate me. It’s mostly to do with the association. People see the word migrant and immediately images of people fleeing war, persecution, famine, or poverty flash in front of their eyes. Granted, these are the major reasons people leave their home countries, but they aren’t the only ones. Some people become migrants because they just want to live somewhere else. They are tired of their current environment (which can be due to several reasons) and they just want a change, which is perfectly normal. But the moment they call themselves that, they are thrown into the box of fleers and refugees and if they try to explain their way out of that box, they just become a person in denial of their situation. It doesn’t just stop there, the amount of prejudice that one then faces following that – in job applications, seeking accommodation and so forth – is unimaginable.

What’s actually funny is that these terms migrant, immigrant and emigrant are applied depending on where you’re from. You’ll find people who travel from South America, Africa, the Middle East, or some parts of Asia are typically defined as the immigrants – the word being associated with negative emotions and feelings and one term in particular: illegal! Then you’ve got immigrants from other European countries, the UK (because, I mean, after Brexit can we still call them Europeans?), North America or Australia having their own little special term for literally the same thing that everyone else is doing. Expats they are called. A more welcome term despite their length of stay in another country being equally undefined.

Anyways, this is one of the first things I’ve learnt as an immigrant, no sorry expat, no actually migrant….nah, you know what, I’ve got my own term for this living in Europe now – Pumpkin Abroad. Yes, this is one of the first things I’ve learnt as a Pumpkin living abroad – that you must first have your state as a foreigner here well-defined. Sometimes they do it for you, but if you can break down the walls of the box they’ve put you in, that’s the first step in making your journey here slightly easier.

I’ll see you in the next read!