The Quiet Earthquake of Moving Across Borders

Posted on August 19, 2025 by Simone Johnson-Smith, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

When people talk about migration, the conversation often sticks to the big headlines—policy debates, refugee crises, work visas. But those don’t tell you what it’s actually like to pick up your life and set it down on unfamiliar ground.

The move itself is one day on the calendar. The adjustment is a slow, shapeshifting thing.

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For many, the first challenge is practical. New systems, new rules, new forms you’ve never heard of. The grocery store layout is strange. You’re not sure which number to call for a doctor, or how to ask for the right medicine in the right language. It’s humbling, often in ways you didn’t expect.

Then comes the social terrain. Even if you’ve learned the language, there’s the matter of how people use it—the inside jokes, the pauses that mean “I’m done talking” in one culture but “I’m still thinking” in another. Friendships take longer to form than you thought, not because people are unkind, but because their idea of “friendship” might be different from yours.

The hardest part can be invisible: losing the easy sense of belonging you didn’t realize you carried. Home used to be something you could navigate without thinking. Now you’re hyperaware of yourself everywhere you go.

Adjustment doesn’t follow a neat timeline. Some people feel grounded after a few months; for others, the unease lingers for years. And it’s rarely linear—one day you’re confident in your new role at work, the next you’re missing the smell of your childhood street so sharply you have to sit down.

But there’s another side to it. This kind of dislocation can sharpen your senses. You notice more—the way sunlight hits a certain building, the rhythm of street sounds, the quiet resilience in people who’ve built their own hybrid sense of home. Over time, you start weaving pieces of your old world into the new one, until the fabric feels like yours again.

Migration is often framed as an ending and a beginning. In reality, it’s a long middle. And in that middle, you learn to carry two (or more) versions of yourself at once. That’s not a flaw—it’s a form of abundance.