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As I sat on the ground, watching the sun set on the night of my 30th Birthday I looked around at the friends surrounding me and thought to myself "I'm home". Not an odd feeling to have, until I tell you that I was over 3,000 miles from my hometown and my loved ones. On that night in Bristol, so far from anyone who had known me for longer than 9 months, I felt whole. Here I was sitting next to a group of people who had welcomed me into their lives, into their families with not as much as a second thought. That moment was unlike any I had ever felt before on my many adventures of living abroad. People often talk about that feeling with another person, a soulmate even, but for me it was a soulmoment. The moment I realized I had been searching for for a very long time but one I knew I would have to inevitably leave behind. Here's the thing with living abroad - more often than not you cannot stay. Sure there are ways to do it but in this case that was not a possibility. Here I was having one of the happiest birthday's of my life, besides the 5th birthday I got a Dalmatian cake of course, knowing deep down that in a week my heart would be breaking. That night was bliss. Yes, I knew that it would come to an end but there was no way I was going to let that take away from the feeling I had unknowingly been searching for the last decade of my life. When I first left for the UK I had no feelings towards the decision whatsoever, I just knew that my need for change outweighed any other feelings I had. I won't tell you that landing in England I found everything I was looking for, because that would be a big lie! That soulmoment I mentioned was not instant. If anything the first 6 months of my time in England had me wondering at least once a week if I was better off just leaving, but then again I'm not a quitter. That moment was more like a slow burning one being created deep down inside me. More than six months into this two year adventure and I started to get glimpses of it. A feeling of utter bliss here, a moment of immense pride there, but by no means did it happen from the jump. That is, until the day I finally realized how head over heels I was for this city. This community that had welcomed me with open arms. The opportunities that were presenting themselves to me. All of it. Someone far more wise than myself once said that "things come to you when you're your best self" and I had never experienced that until Bristol. There were still struggles, but I felt more than capable of dealing with those speed bumps as they came up because I had this incredible support system. One that I never had before, one that I had only dreamed of until that point. I had created so many local connections in Bristol and it blew my mind every time I connected with someone or something else because on paper I was most definitely not a local. A Canadian in Bristol feeling more at home in a foreign country than in her home country. I won't even try to explain, because really and truly it won't make sense unless you've experienced that feeling yourself, and I hope you do one day. I hope one day you visit a place and it steals your soul and leaves you saying "I'm home". As heartbreaking as it can be when your time there comes to an end it is the most magical feeling on Earth. So often we hear from those who travel or move abroad that they were overcome with sadness and left teary eyed as they boarded their plane into the great unknown. But what if I told you that those feelings are not reserved for leaving home. Sometimes coming back home from abroad can feel like stepping into a not so great unknown.