On loneliness, belonging, homesickness, and the quiet courage of building a life in a new country.
There are things nobody tells you about moving abroad. Not because they don’t matter, but because some experiences are difficult to put into words. This is a letter to everyone building a life in Switzerland, especially on the days when it feels harder than you imagined.
Dear you, finding your way in Switzerland,
I wish someone had written me this letter when I first arrived.
I wish someone had told me that moving to a new country isn’t just about leaving a place behind. It’s about leaving behind a life in which you knew who you were, where you belonged, and how the world around you worked.
And that even when the move is something you wanted, something you chose, something you dreamed of, it can still be incredibly hard.
You may have underestimated what it would ask of you.
The unfamiliar language. The unspoken rules. The constant effort of figuring things out. The smallest everyday tasks that suddenly demand so much courage.
There may be days when your body feels constantly on alert, as though you can never quite relax into your surroundings.
Even ordering a coffee might make you nervous. Even your emotions may feel like they need translation.
I hope you give yourself time to feel safe in this new life.
I hope you know that the first winter may feel especially long.
The darkness may arrive before you’re ready. The silence may feel heavier than you expected. You may miss the warmth of familiar voices more than the warmth of the sun.
But slowly, you may learn to find comfort in the quiet. In the soft light of a candle, the warmth of a home you’ve made your own, the beauty of a world that asks you to slow down.
You’ll learn how to dress for the cold, how to layer, how to move through seasons you once knew only from photographs.
And perhaps, one day, winter will no longer feel like something to endure, but a season in which you can rest.
I hope you are patient with yourself when the job applications go unanswered.
When your experience doesn’t seem to carry the same weight. When your confidence begins to waver, and you wonder whether you left too much of yourself behind.
You haven’t lost your abilities, your ambition or your worth.
You’re simply learning to find your place in a world that doesn’t yet know you.
And while I hope the right opportunities find you, I also hope you discover that your life doesn’t have to be on hold until they do.
There is life to be lived in the waiting, too.
I wish someone had prepared me for the loneliness.
Not just the loneliness of having no one to meet for coffee, but the quieter kind.
The kind that comes from having no shared history with the people around you.
From missing weddings, birthdays, festivals and ordinary Sunday afternoons back home.
From watching life continue without you in places where you once belonged so effortlessly.
And perhaps the hardest part is that not everyone back home will understand.
They’ll see the mountains, the lakes, the beautiful streets and the smiling photographs.
They’ll remind you how lucky you are.
And you may struggle to explain why, in a country that looks so much like paradise, you sometimes feel so far from yourself.
I hope you know that gratitude and grief can live in the same heart.
You can love the life you’re building and still miss the one you left behind.
You can be happy here and still wish you were somewhere else for a little while.
You don’t have to choose between those feelings.
I hope you don’t mistake cultural differences for personal rejection.
The directness may catch you off guard. Friendships may take longer to form. People may seem to have their circles, their routines, their lives already neatly arranged.
And you may find yourself wondering where you fit into all of it.
Give it time. And give people a chance.
Some friendships will grow slowly. Some will surprise you. And one day, you may find yourself surrounded by people who didn’t know the person you used to be, but have come to love the person you’re becoming.
You’ll learn
to do things you never imagined doing yourself. To navigate unfamiliar systems, solve everyday problems, build a home and create routines from scratch.
And if you’re raising children here, you’ll find yourself learning alongside them.
You’ll try to preserve the traditions you grew up with while making room for the ones they are growing into.
There may be moments when they feel more at home here than you do.
And that, too, can be both beautiful and bittersweet.
Belonging may become something you have to redefine.
Perhaps it will no longer be one country, one language or one place.
Perhaps it will be the people who make room for you, the rituals you create, the memories you carry and the home you slowly build.
And dear you, there is something else I hope you remember.
Amidst all the uncertainty, you have also been given a blank canvas.
Not an empty life. Never that.
You bring with you everything you have loved, learned, survived and become.
But here, you have a chance to ask yourself questions that perhaps life never gave you the space to ask before.
Who am I, beyond the roles I’ve always played?
What do I want this next chapter to look like?
What do I want to keep? What am I ready to let go of?
You may discover new interests, find unexpected friendships, build a community, change careers or create a life that looks very different from the one you had planned.
And you don’t have to rush any of it.
You are allowed to begin again without having to become someone entirely new.
Ten years from now, you may look back at this version of yourself with a tenderness you cannot yet imagine.
You may wish you had worried a little less, trusted yourself a little more and understood that finding your feet was never going to happen overnight.
Some things will become easier. Others may always carry a little ache.
But slowly, the unfamiliar streets may become your everyday routes. The house may begin to feel like home. The people who were once strangers may become your people.
And perhaps, without even noticing when it happened, you’ll realise that you’ve built a life here.
Not because you stopped missing home.
But because you learned that your heart could make room for another one.
So, dear you,
Please be gentle with yourself.
You don’t have to love every moment of this journey. You don’t have to turn every struggle into a lesson. You don’t have to prove to anyone that moving here was the right decision.
Some days, simply getting through the day is enough.
You are not behind. You are not failing at starting over. You are finding your way.
And I hope that along the way, you find not just a place to live, but a life that feels like your own.
With love,
Someone who arrived here ten years ago, and still carries pieces of two homes in her heart.
Pragati Siddhanti
Founder, My Swiss Story 💙
A little note from My Swiss Story
If any part of this letter felt familiar, I hope you know that you don’t have to navigate this journey alone.
My Swiss Story was born from the belief that belonging doesn’t always happen by itself. Sometimes, we create it through conversations, friendships, shared experiences and the simple act of showing up for one another.
Wherever you are in your journey, whether you’ve just arrived or have called Switzerland home for years, there is room for your story here, too.
With love, from our community to yours. 💙
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