The City Doesn't Know Me Yet...

“You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere.”

— Miriam Adeney

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There’s something strange about existing in a new country. Not bad. Not always good. Just strange. Like your soul has arrived but hasn’t quite unpacked yet.

People talk about missing home. That’s the easy part to name. You miss your mom’s cooking, your dad’s voice calling out from the other room. Your favorite spot on the balcony. The inside jokes that require no explanation. You miss knowing how things work—emotionally, practically, physically. You miss being sure of yourself.

But then there’s another feeling. One that isn’t as often talked about. The one that sits heavier than homesickness and moves slower. It doesn’t make it into Instagram captions. It doesn’t have a name you can drop casually in conversation.

It’s the feeling of being misplaced.

Not lost exactly. Just… not yet found.

I don’t know how to explain it fully. It’s not a dramatic emotion. It’s quiet. Subtle. Almost slippery. You might not even realize it’s there until you’re sitting on the tram, and suddenly it hits you that you’ve been floating through the week, functioning fine, but feeling like a ghost version of yourself. Like someone pressed mute on the part of you that used to feel sure.

You’re there. But also not. Present, but flickering.

And this feeling—this misplaced-ness—doesn’t always come from big things. Often, it’s born in the tiniest moments. You mispronounce something, and the cashier switches to English, and even though they’re being kind, it stings. You hesitate before pressing a button on a machine because you’re not sure what it’ll do. You smile too much, nod too much, try to fit yourself into whatever version of normal exists here.

It’s not just a language gap. Or a cultural one. It’s the gap between the you that existed before and the you that’s slowly, painfully, quietly forming now.

And nobody really talks about it.

They talk about the parties. The adventure. The freedom. The glow-up. And those things happen, yes. But there are also the long walks with your thoughts. The mornings you wake up and feel like you’re in someone else’s life. The hours where everything is fine, but you feel like you’re watching it happen from outside your body.

You don’t even always realize it’s happening, until one day you sit still for long enough to feel it.

It’s not sadness, not really. It’s not loneliness in the classic sense either. It’s like your soul hasn’t caught up with your body yet. Like you’ve arrived, but you’re still waiting for some piece of yourself to land, to take root, to say, okay, we live here now.

And in the meantime, you perform. You smile, explore, eat new things, make small talk, laugh even. But there’s a part of you that’s tired from pretending you know what you’re doing.

Some days you do feel like you’re figuring it out. Like you're building something solid inside all this uncertainty. But other days, it just feels like walking through mist. One slow, unsure step at a time.

And the thing is—this isn’t about being weak, or ungrateful, or overly sensitive. It’s about being human. About acknowledging that transitioning into a new life comes with a strange grief. Not just for what you left behind, but for the version of you that doesn’t quite fit here yet.

This version of you is learning how to live differently. How to adjust your tone. How to read new signs—literal and emotional. How to ask questions you thought you already knew the answers to. How to be patient with your own confusion.

Some nights it feels like too much. Like you’ve made a mistake. Like the person who decided to move away was far too optimistic about how strong you’d be.

But even in those moments, somewhere deep down, you know this isn’t the end of the story. It’s just a rough chapter. A foggy page. A paragraph that doesn’t quite flow yet.

And slowly—without you noticing—it starts getting easier. Not all at once. But in tiny ways. You remember directions without checking. You understand a joke. You cook a meal that tastes like home. You stop second-guessing your every move.

You're still figuring it out. But now, you do it with a little more grace.

☕ Coffee of the Day: Cappuccino Choco

Bitterness for the leaving. Chocolate for the warmth of becoming.

Some days, this city feels like a stranger. Other days, it feels like a conversation just beginning. This cappuccino choco… it knows the ache behind the smile. It knows the weight of being in between. It’s not here to energize or excite. It’s just here to be with me, while I try to be with myself.

And maybe… that’s enough.

~The Stressed Potato

A quite day in Milan, Italy

Here's a picture I think explains what I mean...