“Living in that moment is learning how to live between big moments. It’s about learning how to make the most of Invetoweien and having the boldness to make those moments exciting.” ~ Morgan Harper Nichols
There is a distinctive sadness that is often unnamed. It lives in the moment when you are not here or there. When you’re stuffing into your mind, but still awakening to the same kitchen.
When you say your soul goes, you haven’t said your bank account, relationships or circumstances yet.
It was a middle-way sadness, the pain I’ve been swimming for weeks now.
My partner may or may not be able to offer work immediately. We may have moved to Geneva and finally have our place again, including furniture, friends, rhythms, etc.
You know, we have been nomads for five years. In 2020, we packed everything and kept it when the pandemic hit and when we moved to Porto, Portugal. Italy, France, Sweden and the UK followed. My partner now needs more stability again, but I still don’t know what it needs.
I might take a leap and board a plane to Chile or China and follow a whisper that something might change there. I can’t plan anything yet. not much. And it eats me alive.
I’m not used to admiration. I have a word that is half German and approaches our language: Fernweh.
There is no perfect English translation, but I live somewhere between Wonderlast and Homesickness. Not for the home, but somewhere else. For a life that has not yet been lived. For a distant landscape that feels like you’re calling your name, even if you’ve never been.
Historically, Farnwe has roots in romantic times. Writers and artists felt the pull of distant lands to feel alive in them rather than conquering them. It’s the pain of the horizon. Hunger for distance.
Soulful discomfort with too much identity.
German romanticism caused this pain. Writers like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine, and later Hermann Hesse lived and wrote from this aspirational place.
As the writer Goethe reflected during his trip to Italy, “architecture is frozen music,” he confessed, “the spirit of a distant land is what I need to restore myself.”
I feel it now in every cell of my existence.
And even when I answered the call to attack in Egypt alone last year, losing myself in Istanbul for a month and living in Bali for two months, I met Farnwe’s twins: Homesick. My dog, my partner, my kitchen table, and shared food, a longing for what is known.
So I always find myself in the strange spaces between me and Farnwe and the desire to live a more rooted life. Between the freedom of craving and the familiarity of craving. Between my desire to disappear into a new culture, my new version of myself, and my desire to stay close to what I base on.
But something’s different this time.
I don’t long for the height of my escape. I long for a quiet return to myself. It’s not performance. It’s not a spiritual branding method.
just me. Woman holding a suitcase. Woman holding a camera. Woman in one pocket and curiosity in the other pocket.
And I’m learning to name this pain the truth, not the failure.
This is a sadness in the middle. Your soul is too wide for boundaries, so the pain of belonging to a place where there is no one.
I used to think I had to make a choice. Build something in the city in a relationship. Or, following the next passport stamp, you will become a nomad.
Then I met my partner. He wanted to settle for the long term again, so I wonder what to choose.
Rather, I think the actual job isn’t the choice. But both allow me to live inside me. Every time I walk around this world alone without him, to miss what I left behind. And whenever I live a calm life with him, to make myself love what I have built.
The truth is that sometimes I want to light the incense in my place. Sometimes I want to wander around Shanghai in a notebook. Sometimes I want both on the same day.
And I know I’m not alone.
There are a lot of people sitting in our soul wanderers, soft seekers and limbo. I’m waiting for clarity. For visas. For signing. I wonder if we are selfish. I think we’re just confused. I wonder what we do in our lives, but others seem very clear.
If that’s you, I just want to say: you haven’t failed.
Your pain is proof of your depth. Your aspiration means you are alive. Your uncertainty is sacred. And your desire to root out freedom and roots is not a contradiction. It’s a gift.
So I’m here and still waiting to find out what’s next. Probably Geneva. Probably China or Chile. Maybe somewhere I haven’t dreamed about it yet.
There is no answer. But I have a language now. And language has always been my bridge.
I thought the pain meant something was wrong. That they had to choose their lane: freedom or stability. But now I know: pain is a compass, not a curse.
A real lesson? Maybe there’s no need to fix the pain. Maybe we need to learn how to live with it. To stop asking yourself, “Where am I?”, you start asking, “Who am I?”
Maybe that’s all we need in the middle. It’s not a plan. It’s not a flight. But the sentence that makes us breathe. And for me, today, it’s this:
My job is not to end the pain, but to build a life where I can hold both.
