Welcome back to Almost Local, my friends.
It’s Iris, writing to you from Auckland, New Zealand (Aotearoa). If you haven’t listened to Maria’s latest episode yet – Episode 31, Does moving abroad change Who You Are – I really think you should. Not because it’s packed with advice or practical tips, but because it’s the kind of honest, quiet reflection that reminds you why Almost Local exists in the first place.
This month marks one year since Maria and her family moved back to New Zealand. And in this episode, she shares something I think a lot of us in this community will recognise immediately.
Today’s Almost Local Truth, as Maria puts it:
“Moving abroad changes more than your address. It changes the tiny habits that quietly remind you who you are.“
🌊 The culture shock nobody warns you about
We talk a lot about the practical side of moving —
finding a house,
a job,
a doctor,
navigating a new system.
Those things matter enormously, of course. But Maria talks about something else in this episode: the invisible kind of culture shock. The one that quietly reshapes your identity without ever announcing itself.
When her family returned to Auckland after three years in the Netherlands, Maria expected it to feel like coming back to something familiar. Instead, she found herself feeling quietly unsettled for months. Not dramatically — just that persistent, low-grade feeling of having to rebuild herself again. That particular kind of discomfort that doesn’t have a clean name, but that so many of us living between cultures know all too well.
🌍 Identity is built from the small things
In the episode, Maria mentions she’s been reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, and one idea that stayed with her is this:
“Our identity emerges from our habits. The things we repeat become the evidence of who we believe we are.“
She connects this beautifully to her own experience. When the family first lived in New Zealand, one of Maria’s weekly rituals was visiting the local public library. For someone who grew up in Argentina, discovering a neighbourhood library where you could borrow anything — fiction, nonfiction, whatever you could think of — felt genuinely magical. Without realising it, that habit became part of how she saw herself. Not just a reader. Someone who stayed curious.
When they moved to the Netherlands, one of the first things Maria did was find the local library. She got her card, walked in — and almost every book was in Dutch. She walked home quietly sad, not quite able to explain why.
Now she understands. It wasn’t really about the books. It felt like she’d lost a small piece of herself.
🌿 Some habits travel. Some don’t
What I love most about this episode is the honesty around what actually happens to our habits when we move — and move again.
Maria eventually found other ways to keep that reader identity alive in the Netherlands: English book exchanges at the international community, and little street libraries scattered around the neighbourhood. And she realised: she hadn’t lost the identity of being a reader. She’d only lost one way of expressing it.
The Netherlands also gave her something completely new — cycling. It became part of her daily rhythm, part of who she was. So when they moved back to Auckland, one of the first things she did was buy an e-bike. She wanted to carry that part of herself home.
For a while, it worked. Then gradually, she returned to driving — not because she stopped loving it, but because the roads, the distances, the rhythm of Auckland just didn’t support it the same way. The e-bike is still in the garage. And that, she says, taught her something important: some habits travel with us, some need to be reinvented, and some belong to a particular place — a beautiful gift that place quietly leaves behind in you.
☕ What actually helped her settle back in
Looking back at this first year, Maria says it wasn’t simply time that helped her feel at home again. It was repetition.
Returning to the library.
Going to the gym.
Yoga.
Morning coffee with friends.
Recording this podcast.
Building the Almost Local community.
Little by little, those small rituals became evidence that a new chapter was being built.
Maybe identity isn’t something we either keep or lose. Maybe it’s something we can continuously edit — some parts staying, some evolving, and some new ones appearing because another culture introduced us to a version of ourselves we never knew existed.
💬 A different question worth asking yourself
If you’ve recently moved, or moved back, Maria ends the episode with a gentle reframe I’ve been thinking about ever since:
Maybe don’t just ask: “How do I settle in?”
Maybe also ask:
- What habits help me feel like myself?
- What tiny routines can I start rebuilding?
- What new ones might this place invite me to discover?
Because belonging rarely arrives all at once; sometimes it arrives quietly, one ordinary habit at a time. And maybe that’s what becoming Almost Local really means — not choosing between who you were and who you are becoming, but allowing both to exist at the same time.
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode of the Almost Local Podcast – Does Moving Abroad Change Who You Are?
If you’ve ever:
- felt quietly unsettled after a move
- lost a habit abroad and felt it more than you expected
- tried to carry a piece of one country into the next
- wondered who you’re becoming between cultures
This episode will probably resonate deeply.
🎙️ Listen to the Almost Local Podcast:
Spotify or Apple
More AL Truths coming soon 🌿
🌍 Join the Almost Local Community
Receive Maria’s reflections in your inbox, join our monthly online and in-person Gatherings & Coffee Circles, and navigate life abroad together with a community of women who truly get it. Or join the AL circle as a member, and enjoy all monthly gatherings included in your membership.