Learning to Feel at Home in a Place That Isn’t Mine
When I moved to Canada from Germany, I didn’t expect the idea of “home” to become such a moving target. I had lived away from home before (during my undergrad in Berlin) and while it was chaotic, challenging, and very much its own world, it still felt culturally familiar. I was surrounded by a language I knew, humor I understood, food I grew up with, and a sense of rhythm that, while faster and louder than what I was used to in Düsseldorf, didn’t require translation.
So when I arrived in Vancouver, I assumed the transition would be similar: new surroundings, new routines, but still fundamentally manageable. And in many ways, it was. Vancouver is a beautiful city: calm, polite, and stunningly located between ocean and mountain. People are friendly, open, and easy to talk to. But for a long time, it didn’t feel like I was actually part of it. I knew how to function, how to navigate the city, how to participate in daily life, but there was a quiet sense of being just slightly outside of things.
It wasn’t anything dramatic. Just a low-level disconnect. Like I was borrowing a life that didn’t fully belong to me.
When the basics are in place but something’s missing
I lived in Vancouver for five years. I worked, made friends, ran on the seawall, got to know the grocery stores and the coffee shops. And still, I never quite felt rooted. I didn’t feel unwell or displaced, just not fully at ease.
Then, three years ago, we moved to Ottawa.
I didn’t expect it to feel different. In fact, I didn’t expect much at all. Just another Canadian city, colder, quieter, maybe a little less picturesque. But something shifted.
Not all at once, and not in any dramatic way. But slowly, I noticed that I was thinking less about how I sounded when I spoke. I stopped Googling what to say at the doctor’s office or what a “hydro bill” was. I got to know the rhythm of local life, and it started to feel like mine. I made a few good connections. I found places I genuinely enjoyed returning to. I stopped performing and started relaxing.
At some point, I realized I no longer felt like I was temporarily occupying a space. I was just... living in it.
The quiet signs of belonging
For me, feeling at home never came with a clear moment or milestone. It didn’t arrive with legal status or perfect fluency. It grew in small rituals: choosing a particular bakery over others or running into someone I knew in a bar. It showed up in the comfort of my routines, the quiet confidence that I knew where things were and how to move through my day without second-guessing myself.
I still miss Germany, of course I do. I miss my family, the food, the layers of shared understanding that only really exist between people who grew up in the same context. But I no longer feel like I’m in between places. I just feel like I carry more than one version of home with me.