From the archive

You left. Why are you still living there?

I'm not going to tell someone who lost their home to just smile and fall in love with a new country. You can miss people, your language, your street. You can be angry about being forced to leave. Sometimes all you have the energy for is paperwork and getting through tomorrow. This isn't a contest to see who becomes a local fastest. And being grateful for safety doesn't require you to be thrilled with every bus. But there is a difference between the pain of loss and the habit of spending years keeping everything new at a distance. Especially when the first has become a convenient explanation for the second.