Reclaiming Home: Reflections on Returning

So much is written about expatriation—those bright new starts, rushing forward into the unknown. Expectation, adventure, often accompanied by financial gains… a larger house, a private school, a maid, a driver, a gardener. A life you could never have created in your home country.

Less is said about repatriation—the unthinkable. There’s a sense of moving backwards, of giving up, of resignation. For many of my fellow expats, a feeling of dread. Sometimes those endings were always meant to be: a contract expiring on its preordained date, a child moving to secondary school. The move back home is tinged with loss, stained with grief, but manageable, mandated, meant to be. And sometimes the move back home is crueller than that—unwanted, unexpected: a job loss, a sickness, a divorce.

There’s little celebration attached to moving home. In Kenya, expats know—though you’d be hard pressed to find one who’d say it out loud—that we are living a better life. Most expatriates in Kenya fall within the country’s top wealth brackets, a financial position that gives them freedoms unheard of in their own countries. Mix that with a go-go, pleasure-soaked lifestyle and a system where rules bend if you know who to ask, and you’ve got a world where “no” is a word rarely heard. “Viva la vida,” the expats cry! We are living the life. And on the surface, they are. Why would they ever want to go home?

It’s easy to get caught up in it. I did. And for a short while, I revelled in a kind of pseudo-popularity I’d never experienced before. With a fridge full of wine and an open-door policy, life was a tidal wave of buddies, barbecues, and beachside bandas. I rode that wave until the wheels came off—or, with hindsight, until the blinkers fell from my eyes. Like anything that feels too good to be true, it was. When your social circle is built on boozy lunches and quiet betrayals, the truth hits hard the moment life dips. It was a crash course in figuring out who my real friends were. And when I boarded the plane home, I had but a handful left. But what friends they are—irreplaceable. Family.

Repatriation, for me, has been a similar lesson in figuring out what is important in life. For a time, I focused only on myself and my children. One foot in front of the other. I spent the summer gardening, hands caked in mud, face beaded in sweat. I cleared the collected detritus from the garden of a house that had been tenanted for fourteen years. As I drove load after load to the tip, I began uncovering long-lost gems: a rose my grandmother bought me when we moved in eighteen years ago, a red heart from a necklace once lost, a pond emerging from its nest of bulrushes. And when the garden lay bare, I began to plant—to create life where there had been none. To give back rather than take.

For me, repatriation has been easy. The garden story is true, but it also works as a metaphor for my return. Moving home feels less like moving backwards and more like finding myself again—reclaiming pieces of me that were burned off by the equatorial sun. Before moving abroad, I enjoyed so many things: baking and gardening, painting and DIY—things we paid others to do in Africa, but which I love doing myself. Reading and poetry; cinemas, theatres, art galleries, and museums—all of which were replaced by the “rosé all day” culture. Walking the English countryside, the glory of seasons, of bluebells and shimmering lakes, copper trees and scudding clouds, and having the calmness and frame of mind to observe and appreciate it all.

Everyone’s coming-home story is different (as is everyone’s experience of life in Kenya). I know many people who lived full and wholesome lives in Nairobi, as I know many people who have repatriated and are struggling to transition. When it comes to moving home, I often wonder how I got off so lightly. Maybe it’s because I was so terrified of coming back that anything would feel better than what I imagined. Perhaps it’s because I was so broken when I left Kenya that the only way was up. I was scared to come home—really scared. More than anything, I was afraid of being alone. But I’ve learned that alone and lonely are two very different states. I’ve felt lonelier in a crowded bar full of “friends” in Kenya than I have at any moment in the eight months I’ve been back in England.

And as I stitch myself back together, I’m discovering a simple truth: I am enough—just me. I don’t need a packed house or a fridge full of wine to feel complete. Coming home has become an act of rooting—planting new seeds and tending to a quieter kind of beauty. One that doesn’t measure itself by wealth, popularity, or how many invitations fill a weekend, but by the peace that grows when you finally choose yourself. After all, you can travel the world, but there’s nowhere quite like home

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The Expat Mummy began as a personal blog, a way for me to navigate and make sense of my new life in Kenya. As I shared stories about places and experiences, it naturally evolved into a travel blog. Since returning home, I’ve received many messages from readers interested in contributing their own stories. If you’d like to write for The Expat Mummy—whether it’s a travel tale or a lifestyle piece—please get in touch. I’m not paying; I’m simply offering a communal space to share experiences and a platform for people who want to write.

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