Expatriotical

Episode 49: Navigating Feelings of Loss as an Expat

• Chandra Alley • Season 1 • Episode 49

Share episode

As humans, we can feel loss from a variety of events. Death, illness, and moving away all being some of them, but those feelings of loss can be intensely magnified when you are living abroad. Today, Chandra explores those feelings of loss, by sharing her own experiences as well as 4 principles to help guide you through the loss of saying "goodbye" to dear friends.

AND listen all the way to the end of the episode for a big announcement that is also this week's "Chan Select"!


Like what you hear? Text and tell me!

"Live and Travel in the Know" with Expatriotical!

Bienvenue, Benvenuti, and Welcome to Expatriotical, the podcast for expats, travelers, and other adventurous souls. I’m Chandra Alley and after living as an expat with my husband and 4 children in two different countries for 6 years, I’ve learned the arts of pivoting during pitfalls, traveling tastefully for less, and soaking in amazing new cultures without losing your own.


Join me, as we dive into the joys and challenges of travel and the expat life in every episode!


Hey everyone! I hope wherever this episode finds you this week that things are going well for you. Here in Paris the sun is shining and from my office window there is not a cloud in the sky. Which honestly feels really good because I had admittedly complained or maybe not complained, but vented and expressed sorrow in the fact that from about September 3rd all the way through until we left to go to Colorado for the Christmas holiday past year- just a little bit ago 2024, it had just felt extra cold and dark for me here in Paris.


If you have just recently joined the podcast and didn't start from Episode 1, you may not know that for the first four years of our marriage, my husband, Chris and I lived in Seattle. That felt like and really was an adventure in and of itself coming from small town, Colorado, and going to Seattle, a city in which we never even dreamed of visiting, felt like something from another world! We arrived at the end of August in 2011 and it was sunshine and perfect temperatures and we loved it!


And I have to give it to Western Washington, they have pretty much the best summers I've ever experienced in my life (granted I haven’t been everywhere in the world)! But after about the second or third week of September, things took a turn in another direction, weatherwise. And we began experiencing the constant gray and drizzle that is Seattle weather.


A year and a half, and I learned to start taking vitamin D, which honestly greatly improved my mood. And I truly understood how Starbucks had gained such vast popularity so quickly, as that is its birthplace! You need that caffeine to have a little extra pep in your step.


So then, when we moved to Paris in 2022, and fall arrived, there were days of sunshine and days that were partly cloudy or completely cloudy, but for the most part, I thought I saw the sun throughout that fall and winter and even in spring, not every day, but certainly close to it. And I thought to myself, “This is way easier than living in Seattle.”


And wouldn't you know it, that the next year was pretty much the same thing. Yes there was rain, and there were some cloudy days, but all in all this Colorado-raised girl, that was used to seeing 300+ days of sunshine a year, which is pretty much the same in California and Texas, which are the two other states that I had lived in other than Washington, this girl was pretty happy.


But on the third day of school in this school year 2024/2025, it turned cold and rainy, it did not let up. And honestly, I really struggled. Maybe I had a little bit of seasonal affective disorder, but I still take my vitamin D, and I still drink coffee. I try to exercise, I probably could do that more often, and I would say I eat quite healthy.


But I was really just amazed at how much the change in weather made me feel different or even heavy. So a little piece of knowledge that was shared with me while I was gone in Colorado, enjoying glorious sunshine, granted, not all of it was warm sunshine because it is winter, but when a friend of mine- who also lives here in Paris- told me that her husband had heard on the news, because they actually speak French, that it had been the darkest coldest winter on record since 2008, and when I heard that I felt seen. Or maybe I felt justified at my negativity towards the weather.


I just knew that I had felt this feeling of loss, like a “what happened to the Paris that I'm used to?” kind of loss. And so I say all that to set the scene for the different kinds of loss, and I'm probably going to forget some if I'm honest, that you can experience as an expatriate.


The first kind of loss that we're going to talk about is certainly the hardest, because it's the loss of a loved one. “Death comes to us all…” is the beginning of a quote by honestly a lot of people, especially men named John, apparently. I'm really not joking, Google it. But it's true and sometimes the death of a loved one can be unexpected. As I mentioned in last week's episode and also have mentioned in Episode 7: Two Weddings and Two Funerals; less than six months into being an expat, my stepdad, Jerry, passed away.


Jerry had not been in excellent health, he suffered from kidney failure and had had a couple of heart operations or procedures, but he was a hard worker. And rarely complained about anything. So even with those ailments, when he passed away, it definitely felt unexpected.


The feeling that I had of missing my mom's phone call because of the time difference, was heart-wrenching. And the manic hurry that we had to try to get to the funeral and get Caleb a passport in time, was definitely stressful. But I'm not going to ignore the fact that due to Chris's employers's policy, they paid for our entire family to fly back for his funeral.


That was a blessing. Because I know that not every person has that option. Even we, seven months later, had to pay for Chris, and only Chris, to fly back for his granddad's funeral. That time we were able to pay for most of it in points from the airline. But after that experience, we realized we needed to start saving ahead of time, as we still did, and still do thank God, have three healthy grandmas.


So we created an emergency travel fund. That way, we would hopefully never have to experience the loss of a loved one, twofold by not getting to go and say goodbye.


Another time that we can have a feeling of loss is when the first Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, or whatever type of holiday that is special to you, maybe it's a birthday, rolls around and you are nowhere near your family and friends.


For my family and I, our first Christmas in Italy, was actually a really sweet time. All the way up until one week before Christmas we had Chris's parents with us, as they had flown to Italy to be with us, or with our kids, while I was giving birth to Caleb. They arrived two days before Caleb was born, and left a week before Christmas.


So we had an early celebration with them, which was super sweet! And once they left, we had our first Christmas together in our new country. So honestly I can't say that I had a feeling of loss then. It still felt like an adventure.


But I know that my experience is not the same as everyone else's. Many people that are solo expats, may choose to go back to their home country for the holidays. And I have a good friend that for her birthday, chooses to go on a trip and invite some of her best girlfriends to join her!


That way, instead of feeling loss, she is surrounded by friends she loves in a new place on a new adventure, making new and amazing memories.


Another time that you might have a feeling of loss is the first time you get sick. Granted, most of us by the time we are adults don't have our mom to make us chicken noodle soup, bring us tissues and our favorite books, and tuck us into bed or the couch, tightly. But nonetheless, there's something comforting about knowing that maybe she's just right down the road, or maybe it's a really dear coworker that you've known for years, or maybe it's your best friend that brings you warm soup and your favorite tea.


Before you have established community in your new country, getting sick and feeling alone can have a really big impact on your morale. And taken to the extreme of being in the hospital, is even more so.


In July 2020, just three months after I had suffered an ischemic stroke, I went to the hospital to have a procedure to have one – which ended up being two, small holes - which had caused the stroke- closed in my heart. Chris and the kids had driven me to the hospital and dropped me off.


And they didn't drop me off and leave me because we didn't have a babysitter, but because of the hospital regulations set in place from COVID-19, no one was allowed to come with me. I wasn't allowed to have visitors after the procedure, I was alone.


So after receiving my first ever Covid test in which it felt like the nurse was trying to mummify me by pulling my brains out through my nose, I got the results that were negative, and commenced in staying the night in the hospital to have my procedure in the morning.


I'm pretty sure I didn't eat breakfast, because they had to put me under, but I do remember the really sweet nurse who spoke English,  talking to me and comforting me before I was wheeled into the operating room.


Now I know at this point, no friends or family would've been allowed into the operating room anyway, but knowing that I was about to have a procedure done on my heart, arguably one of the most important organs in the body, was really scary. And again the kindness of my cardiologist and surgeon, Dr. Ielasi, helped to assuage my fears when he told me, “You’re going to be ok.”


The great sense of relief that I had when I woke up and was told that everything went great and that once the anesthesia wore off and I was able to go to the bathroom, they would release me and I could go home to my family, that feeling was amazing.


I also recognize that others have gone through things like this abroad, and have not had a nuclear family to go home to. And so I want to use that point to emphasize the value of community. I talk about in Episode 4: Hospitalizations- Child Edition how our neighbors and friends surrounded us when my oldest son was diagnosed with Kawasaki disease and hospitalized for 13 days.


When you live as an expat, being intentional, sewing into other people's lives, and cultivating community really does matter. It matters a lot, and it's not something to take for granted. And as the old quote says, “No man is an island.” And that means no woman, too ladies!


And the last feeling of loss that I'm going to mention, is actually a by-product of doing exactly that. Building community, sewing into others’ lives, and making friends that many times feel more like family.


And that feeling of loss comes when someone moves and you have to say goodbye. I would say my first big experience with this came in 2020 when my dear friend Jena and her family moved back to America. That time was particularly tricky because we were technically still in lockdown, but to celebrate my daughter, Lilliah’s, 7th birthday, we broke the rules a little bit and spent a wonderful evening together.


We gave them a parade along with the rest of the friends and neighbors in the Cascina that we lived in, and we said our tearful goodbyes outside in the open air, due to more restrictions.


The next year hit a little bit harder, because in 2021 four or five of my dear friends left. I'll be honest that that was a bit of an adjustment year, but thankfully a few friends had stayed behind, and we really made considerable effort to keep in touch with the others that had left.


Now fast forward and it's January 2025 as I record this. So far this school year I have said goodbye to four friends. But if I have to be honest, that I'm really not looking forward to this summer, because I’ve counted and 12 families that I have grown to love are leaving.


I can't really express how sad this makes me, it's not that I'm not happy for them, I really am. They're off on big adventures to some places that I'm familiar with, and some of them don't even know where they're going yet, but I can only imagine it'll be wonderful!


But after my experience of having done this a few times, I have a few principles to go by.


Principle number 1, don’t ignore those feelings. Suppressing something that is rising up on you, never helped anyone.


Principle number two, celebrate the person. I just had a going away lunch for a mom and friend and fellow advocate of equality this past Thursday. It was a group of eight or nine women, and we ate, and told stories, and laughed, and it was great. We didn’t just let her slip away. We celebrated the time that we’ve had together and her adventure yet to come.


Principal number three, if it's you, that's leaving, celebrate your time there. Go back to all your favorite places you've discovered while you've lived there, and if there’s some places you haven’t seen yet, go visit. And if you can, throw a party! Unfortunately, once again due to my family catching Covid and the regulations of 14 day quarantine, even in 2022, we were not able to have the party that we had intended to have to say goodbye to all of our dear friends that we had made in Italy. That had a feeling of loss in and of itself.


But that was hopefully a “one of”, and I believe that the next time we move, we will get a chance to say a proper goodbye!


And the fourth and final principal is: strive to maintain connections. I mentioned in Episode 39: Making Friends All Over the World, the different color strings when I did my map visualization exercise, if you will, that tied me to different friends all over the world.


And the reason that I have those strings is because of communication. Sometimes that communication has come through simple text messages or voice messages, the Marco Polo app has been a great way for me to keep in touch, and my children's desire to FaceTime their friends has also played a major factor in maintaining those connections.


But one important caveat, I think I should mention here is that friendships are for a season. Some may last a few months, others years, and some may last a lifetime. I'm sure that's a quote from someone cause I certainly know I'm not being original here, but I want to remind you that if a friendship falls through the cracks, don't feel like a failure. And there are also different kinds of friendships. There are friendships where maybe you text every once in a while, but when you get to see each other in person, once a year, maybe once every other year, maybe not even that often; it’s like you pick up right where you left off.


But regardless of how the friendship turns out, that friendship served its purpose. It was a bright and shining star for a very special, important time in your life, and even if it burned out, that doesn't take away from its significance or value. Remember that.


OK, like I mentioned it's sunny here in Paris and I'm so glad that it is because I would have had a really hard time writing this if it was cloudy and gray. But the sun is shining and that makes my heart smile and reminds me that even with some goodbyes looming in the future, there's still hope. All is not lost.


OK, and now we are going to move on to today’s “Chan Select”! And with it comes one of the big announcements that I told you about last week.


In my travels, I tend to write down what I do on certain trips, honestly on a lot of trips. And I have had many a friend ask if I would share my itinerary. So, I am happy to announce that there is now an online store where you can buy those itineraries also!


They are very reasonably priced, in my opinion, starting at $1.99 each and they can be found at the Expatriotical store on Payhip. Just go to payhip.com/expatriotcal to check it out for yourself!


And for easy access, like I said last week, just click the link in the bio on Instagram. I will, of course, include the link in the show notes, and normally I have to say something about an affiliate, but this time it’s my site so yes, I will get paid if you purchase an itinerary. And hopefully there will be many more diverse products to come soon enough! So once again that’s Payhip, P-A-Y-H-I-P.com/expatriotical.


And now for our quote of the day. Since we spent, or I spent an entire episode talking about loss, I wanted to leave you with a quote full of hope. It comes from musical artist TobyMac, and it says., “Something will grow from all you are going through, and it will be you.”


That's it for today everyone! When you finish listening to this episode, make sure to go to the Expatriotical store at Payhip.com, and if you haven't yet subscribed to this podcast, before you exit your podcast app to go check out the new store, please click the follow or subscribe or plus sign button, and join this amazing… growing community!


Have a fantastic rest of your day and I'll meet you back here again next week. Until then, this is Chandra Alley reminding you to “Live and Travel in the Know” with Expatriotical!