“Living in the moment is learning how to live between the big moments. It is learning how to make the most of the in-betweens and having the audacity to make those moments just as exciting.” ~Morgan Harper Nichols

There’s a peculiar grief that doesn’t often get named. It lives in the moments when you’re neither here nor there. When you’re packing in your mind but still waking up to the same kitchen.

When your soul says go, but your bank account or relationship or circumstance says not yet.

It’s the grief of the in-between, an ache I’ve been swimming in for weeks now, maybe longer.

My partner might be offered a job soon, or he might not. We might move to Geneva and finally have a place of our own again: furniture, friends, rhythm.

You see, we’ve been nomadic for five years now. In 2020, we packed up all our stuff and put it into storage just when the pandemic hit and when we moved to Porto in Portugal. Italy, France, Sweden, and the UK followed. My partner now needs more stability again, and I’m not sure what I need yet.

I might take a leap, board a plane to Chile or China, and follow the whisper that says something there might change everything. I can’t plan anything yet. Not really. And it’s eating me alive.

I’m not new to longing. I’m half German, and there’s a word we hold close in our language: Fernweh.

It doesn’t have a perfect English translation, but it lives somewhere between wanderlust and homesickness—not for home, but for somewhere else. For a life not yet lived. For a distant landscape that feels like it’s calling your name, even if you’ve never been.

Historically, Fernweh has roots in the Romantic period, when writers and artists felt the pull of faraway lands, not to conquer them, but to feel alive inside them. It’s the ache of the horizon. The hunger for distance.

A soulful discomfort with too much sameness.

German Romanticism gave rise to this ache. Writers like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine, and later Hermann Hesse lived and wrote from this place of longing.

As the writer Goethe reflected during his Italian Journey, “Architecture is frozen music,” and he confessed that “the spirit of distant lands was what I needed to restore myself.”

I feel it now in every cell of my being.

And even when I’ve answered its call—wandering through Egypt alone last year, losing myself in Istanbul for a month, and living in Bali for two months—I’ve met Fernweh’s twin: homesickness. The longing for my dog, my partner, my kitchen table and shared meals, the known.

So I always find myself in that strange space between Fernweh and a desire to live a more rooted life. Between craving freedom and craving familiarity. Between the desire to disappear into a new culture, a new version of myself, and the desire to stay close to what grounds me.

But this time, something’s different.

I’m not craving the high of escape. I’m craving the quiet of returning to myself. Not in a performance way. Not in a spiritual branding way.

Just me. A woman with a suitcase. A woman with a camera. A woman with grief in one pocket and curiosity in the other.

And I’m learning to name this ache not as a failure but as a truth.

This is the grief of the in-between. The ache of belonging to no one place, because your soul is too wide for borders.

I used to think I had to choose. Be the grounded woman in a relationship, in a city, building something. Or be the nomad—alone, rootless, following the next passport stamp.

Then I met my partner, with whom I could be both for the last five years. Now that he wants to settle somewhere long-term again, I wonder what I should choose.

Or rather, I wonder if the real work is in the not choosing. But allowing both to live inside me. To let myself miss what I’ve left whenever I roam this world alone without him. And to let myself love what I’ve built whenever I live a settled life with him.

Because the truth is, sometimes, I want to light incense in a place that’s mine. Sometimes, I want to wander through Shanghai with a notebook and no one waiting for me at home. Sometimes, I want both on the same day.

And I know I’m not alone.

There are so many of us soul-wanderers, soft-seekers, sitting in limbo. Waiting for clarity. For visas. For a sign. Wondering if we’re selfish. Wondering if we’re just lost. Wondering what the f*ck we’re doing with our lives while others seem so clear.

If that’s you, I just want to say: you’re not failing.

Your ache is evidence of your depth. Your longing means you’re alive. Your uncertainty is sacred. And your desire to hold both freedom and rootedness is not a contradiction. It’s a gift.

So here I am, still waiting to know what’s next. Maybe Geneva. Maybe China or Chile. Maybe somewhere I haven’t dreamed up yet.

I don’t have answers. But I have language now. And language has always been my bridge back to self.

I used to think the ache meant something was wrong. That I had to pick a lane: freedom or stability. But now I know: the ache is a compass, not a curse.

The real lesson? Maybe we don’t need to fix the ache. Maybe we just need to learn how to live with it. To stop asking ourselves “Where should I be?” and start asking “Who am I becoming?”

Maybe that’s all we need in the in-between. Not a plan. Not a flight. But a sentence that lets us breathe. And for me, today, it is this:

My task is not to end the ache but to build a life that lets me hold both: the longing to go and the ache to stay.

I used to think “home” was a dirty word. Out there — on the road — was where life happened, full of exciting adventures, fascinating people, and endless possibilities. No dreary commutes, 30-minute lunch breaks, mind-numbing meetings, or endless lists of to-dos squeezed into a rushed weekend.

Why would anyone want to be home, the place where routine seemed to sap your will to exist? It baffled me.

My first trip overseas — a vacation to Costa Rica — made me fall in love with travel. For all the reasons mentioned above, I realized why “vacations” were so romanticized in work culture. There was a freedom to them that stood in stark contrast to the daily corporate grind.

So, when I finally quit my job, I set off on an adventure to experience all the world had to offer for as long as I could make my money last.

I mean, who could possibly tire of life on the road?

Well, me.

Eventually, I did tire of being a full-time nomad. I craved a stable group of friends, regular workouts, a bar that knew my name, a kitchen to cook in, and my own bed.

Suddenly, I realized that “home” wasn’t a dirty word. It just felt that way to a young, restless soul for whom adulthood felt eons away.

I had come to understand what someone who is just setting out with romantic notions about travel couldn’t: You can burn out. On my first trip abroad, after 18 months, I hit the wall and decided to cut my trip short. Then, years later, in 2013, I decided that being a nomad was no longer the life for me and decided to stop traveling full-time.

It was time to grow up, I said. Time to stay put and move on from nomad to… whatever came next.

But the allure of the road — and the business of working in travel — pulled me back constantly.

As the years went by, I lived between two worlds: one in which I am traveling, longing for home, and another in which I am home, longing to head out again.

There were moments where I longed for a clone so I could live in both and satisfy my dual desires.

After all, you can’t — and shouldn’t — live solely in one forever.

Because travel and home are complementary forces, yin and yang. Without one, you can’t appreciate the other.

All travelers hit a wall, that moment when they look around and go, “I’m ready to stay in one place.” When and why that happens is a product of many factors, but I have yet to meet a traveler who doesn’t have that experience. When I started traveling in my twenties, it took me years to feel that. But now, a couple of decades older, it happens after just a month.

To handle life, the brain creates mental shortcuts to help it process information. It’s why we tend to drive the same route to work every day — it’s just easier, and it’s why you feel like “you can do it in your sleep.” Because if your brain had to figure out a new route to work every day, it would tire itself out. These routines let us put a lot of life on autopilot, so we have energy for work, people, emotions, thoughts, etc.

But when you travel, you are relearning life skills every day. You have no mental shortcuts. It takes a lot of mental energy to figure out your way in the world anew each day, to repack your bag, say good-bye to the person you met yesterday, and head out and try again to navigate unfamiliar lands, languages, and people as if you had never done so before.

It tires you out.

Whereas a vacation is a temporary break from life, long-term travel is different. When you travel long-term (or are on the move frequently), there is no break. You’re constantly trying to figure things out and also constantly breaking your routine. Your travel battery drains.

Yet in the same way the travel battery needs to be recharged, our “home” battery does too.

While some people can follow the same routine their entire lives, most of us can’t. We find it boring. We need a break. After a while in one place, we yearn to break up the monotony of our daily routine. Work, commutes, errands… day in, day out, like ants marching on and on.

So we go travel again. We have an adventure, meet new people, try new food, and have new experiences. Maybe be learn, grow, and expand who we are as a person. Maybe we’re away for a week or two or we take a month off. Or we start working remotely and spend months away. But eventually our battery drains: we get tired, and then we head home again.

And the cycle repeats.

Growing older has made me believe that we can never fully appreciate home or travel without the other. My first years on the road would never have been so amazing if I weren’t trying to break free from a quarter-century of routine. Likewise, my bed never would have felt so good had I not spent so many years on the move, changing rooms, and having erratic sleep. Nor would I have enjoyed the relief that routine brings had I not spent so many days trying to navigate the stresses of the world for so long.

The joy of one is amplified by the other.

Travel and home are two sides to the same coin. I appreciate each more now than when I was younger, because I get to experience both on my own terms. I’m not trying to run away from either or go to an extreme anymore. I simply follow their ebb and flow and let the battery of life dictate when one or the other happens.

And I think that is a wisdom that only comes with age — and experience.
 

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