Is Singapore still my home?

I always said I would be honest on this blog, and on many occasions, you have read my words of vulnerability and so today is no different, today you will hear the truth about the difficult part of this expat life. So I am back in Singapore after seven long months in Sydney, and although I have gone from one place to the other on more occasions than I would like to count, this time is different. This time has me feeling more unsettled, almost like this home I created for four years is no longer my home.

Trying to reintroduce myself into my old life has been challenging; on the one hand, I am so lucky to have friends that allow me to slide back into my life in Singapore as it was seven months ago. But, on the other hand, I have somehow lost my old identity whilst I was home. I have fallen into unfamiliar territory, which nobody warns you about when you have been gone for so long.

Getting to know my surroundings once again, getting to know my home and the people in it. Getting to know who I am when I am back in Singapore as an expat. Because life feels familiar on the surface level, but when you dig deep, it feels like life around me here has moved on without me somehow and that I am peddling as fast as you can to catch up.

I wonder if this feeling will subside or whether this is a new reality that I face? Have I changed, or have my surroundings changed somehow? Sure, I am not the person I left Singapore as. But, on the other hand, living apart from your partner brings on resilience and independence that you never really needed before, almost like some sort of survival tactic that your subconscious knows you need, even though you haven’t realised it yourself.

Let me tell you, having a routine of your own for the past seven months and introducing new interests into your life because you are on your own and somehow changing over that period doesn’t sit well when you try and slip back into a life you had before you left. Not even sure if any of this will make sense to anyone reading this or whether being away with lots of time on my hands has got me thinking deeper than I had in the past.

My transit life before 2020 saw me flipping between empty nester and full-time single mum regularly, and somehow it worked, and somehow I didn’t overthink the situation of the life we were living. It kind of just worked, and becoming a chameleon was all part of the life we lived.

But now, it is somehow different; I am stuck in limbo between two different worlds, and I never thought I would ever say this, but I am having trouble adapting to the place I once called home.

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