The Price of Belonging Nowhere

I smile outside, but silent storms inside...

There are days when I wake up and have to recalibrate which version of myself is expected to show up. The one who dreams in Tagalog, shops in Swedish, and overthinks in English. It’s a carousel of selves, spinning so fast that even I forget who’s who sometimes.

I used to think speaking three languages was a flex—something I’d wear like a badge of global sophistication. But now, it just feels like a reminder that I don’t fully belong anywhere. Each language is a door I can open, sure. But none of them lead home.

Tagalog is the language of my ghosts.

Tagalog is my emotional mother tongue. It’s where my softness lives. Where my childhood memories hide—the scent of fried garlic in the morning, the rhythmic lull of tricycle engines, my Lolo’s laugh after a corny joke.

But the longer I stay away, the more the language becomes a time capsule I’m afraid to open. Every return trip to the Philippines feels like visiting a version of myself who no longer exists. I can still speak it, of course—but my accent is weird now. My references are outdated. My cousins laugh politely when I speak, like they’re indulging a balikbayan who’s trying too hard to be one of them again.

And I am. Trying. Too hard.

Swedish is the language I use when I need to survive—at work, at the pharmacy, at the immigration office. It’s also the language that reminds me, constantly, that I am not from here. Even when I get the grammar right, I miss the cultural tone. I’ll say something straight, and it comes off too loud, too personal, too much.

I once cracked a joke during a fika break and no one laughed. Not because it wasn’t funny (it was), but because humor here is subtle, dry, perfectly timed. Mine is a little too Filipino—half self-deprecating, half theatrical, full volume.

So I quieted down. Adjusted. Smiled more, spoke less. I’ve become someone who can decode body language, who can read the room, who can navigate bureaucracies in a second language—but who still feels like she’s playing a part, even after all these years.

Then there’s English—the language I write in, podcast in, think in when I’m trying to make sense of anything. It gives me precision. And distance. Which is helpful when you’re trying to process trauma or explain your identity in digestible chunks.

But English was never built to carry my grandmother’s lullabies or the way my boyfriend raised his eyebrow when he was proud but pretending not to be. It’s the language I use to translate my pain, but the pain loses something in translation.

Still, it’s my safest language. The one I control best. The one that makes me sound smarter, more composed, more Western. It’s a performance, but a convincing one.

I came to Sweden for what I jokingly call “the immigrant love story”—the kind that starts with romance and ends with residency. Like so many others before me, I packed up a life, a language, and a hundred versions of myself to follow a feeling across continents. And no, I don’t regret it. Not really. But that doesn’t mean it was easy.

Because what I gained in stability, I traded for proximity—to my people, my food, my noise, my mess. And oh, how I miss the mess. I miss the kind of chaos that’s familiar and warm—the honking jeepneys, the children yelling at each other from rooftops, the neighbors who know exactly when you’ve gained weight and have no problem saying it out loud. I miss being known in that intrusive, affectionate, undeniably Filipino way.

In Sweden, everything is quieter. Polite. Measured. Silence is respected—sometimes even sacred. But in the Philippines, silence is rare and, frankly, suspicious. It usually means someone’s up to something, or sick, or worse, asleep before 10 p.m. There, even grief is loud. Here, even joy is quiet.

I didn’t just leave home. I left the soundtrack of my life. And now, in the stillness of this new country, I sometimes find myself craving the background noise of belonging.

In Sweden, silence is everywhere. And expected. And I’ve grown into it, like a coat I didn’t want but now need.

And the guilt—oh, the guilt. It follows me through time zones. The guilt of being far from my family, siblings as they age. The guilt of not feeling fulfilled in a country that gave me a passport, healthcare, and peace. The guilt of feeling lonely in a life others would kill for.

People say I’m lucky. And I am. But luck doesn’t keep you warm. It doesn’t sit next to you at dinner or text you out of the blue just to say ‘naaalala kita”. Luck is cold company when you’re craving closeness.

So, Where’s Home?

I don’t know anymore. I’ve built a life from scratch in a place that still mispronounces my name. I’ve watched friendships fade because the Wi-Fi was bad, or time zones were worse. I’ve mourned in silence. Celebrated over Zoom. Laughed alone at memes only people “back home” would understand.

Maybe I’m not supposed to belong to one place anymore. Maybe I’m meant to be a bridge, not a destination.

It still hurts, though.

Because being multilingual doesn’t make you more whole. Sometimes, it just means you know how to say I miss you in more ways than anyone should ever have to.

So what have I learned from being homesick in three languages?

That emotional damage is available in multiple dialects. That you can cry in Swedish and still feel it more in Tagalog. That the price of chasing an “immigrant love story” might just be never again knowing where you’re supposed to sit at the family table.

I used to think growing up meant making good choices. Now I think it’s just about making peace with weird ones—like choosing a country where the sun sets at 3 PM, or choosing a career where your biggest skill is translating your inner spiral into readable content.

Sometimes I look at my life and think, “Wow, I really did that.”

Other times I think, “Who let me became adult unsupervised?”

But here I am—still asking big questions like:

Is this home?

Will I be happy in Sweden, the Philippines or anywhere else?

Or did I just get really good at pretending?

Anyway, thanks for reading. Don’t worry, I’m fine. Just having an existential moment in three languages.

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