Not long ago, I read a blog piece in El País, a Colombian newspaper. It was about how lonely people get when they move to a new country. All my fellow ex-pats know exactly how this feels, especially during the holidays when everyone seems to have a family plan, and ours is thousands of miles away.

People leave their country of origin thinking they can make a better life for themselves and their families somewhere else. Many succeed in the sense of being able to get a job and have a somewhat decent living that they probably wouldn’t be able to have under different conditions. This, however, comes with the rampant intolerance, racism and ignorance of many and a big deal of just feeling lonely. It doesn’t matter how many people we meet, we still simply don’t belong outside our home countries.

This being said, when my husband tells me he wants to go back to Colombia, I take it with a grain of salt. I am reluctant to just leave it all behind and go back. I’ve been in North America for almost 10 years now, and when I decided to come back on my own I did it because I knew I could do much better here. I won’t go as deep as to discuss the social and economical reasons of my move… I’ll just leave it at I like how life is here… most of the time. But like Facundo Cabral, “No soy de aquí ni soy de allá.”

When the holidays come it is hard to be away from the homeland. It is very hard to be away from your family. And you try to find people who have things in common with you; you try to find co-patriots you can relate to. It isn’t easy sometimes, even more when the only place that resembles your home country is closed down (that Colombian restaurant everyone seemed to enjoy so much).

And then you have to make the best of it, putting a little light in your life and realizing that despite feeling normally lonely, it doesn’t mean you’re alone. There will always be someone who appreciates you and wants to see you. They may not be your family, but darn close to it. And that’s when you start feeling like you belong.