Communist Statues, Feta Cheese, and the Valley of Roses

This isn't another travel blog or digital nomad diary. It's a homecoming back to Bulgaria after 25 years.

Movers and Shakers

This past August my husband and I sold all of our belongings, packed up our lives (including our 7-year-old cat, Binx), and left all that we know and love to travel thousands of miles across the Atlantic to make a new home in Eastern Europe. No, we're not wanderlusters backpacking through Europe. In fact, when I read these words now I can't help but be amused by the irony. It's a familiar story, like the narrative of millions of immigrants who came to the United States in the early 1900s to pursue the 'American Dream.' It's actually what my parents and I did 25 years ago when we immigrated to the United States from Bulgaria. And here I am, retracing the steps my parents took in spite of all the sacrifices they made to provide a better life for me, I am going back to where they ran from.

Needless to say, my journey back to Bulgaria is a complicated one to define. If we're talking terminology, the return to one's homeland is technically considered repatriation, the return of someone to their own country, often in reference to refugees. But I am not a refugee running away from persecution. On the contrary, my husband and I voluntarily chose to move here. We're young, have flexible jobs, we don't have children or a mortgage, and have always dreamed of living in Europe separate and together. One way or another we made the chaos of the health and political climate work out in our favor. We saw an opportunity to seek a different way of life from what we became accustomed to, and in all honestly, complacent with. As a friendly acquaintance once told us, we are "movers and shakers."

Pilgrimage to the Past

Pilgrimage: pil·grim·age /ˈpilɡrəmij/ noun a journey, often into an unknown, foreign or sacred place where one goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self.

Since arriving here in mid-August, I've come to understand my moving back as more of a pilgrimage, one that I am still defining every day that I am here. Defined as a journey, often into an unknown, foreign or sacred place, a pilgrimage is where one goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good. For me, that sacred place is my motherland, a land that is both foreign and familiar, a country seven hours ahead, but perpetually stuck in the past.

My experience as a first generation immigrant has shaped my existence and my identity as a woman, a daughter, a sister, and a wife. As a native Bulgarian raised in America since the age of three, I've been through all the stages a child with foreign parents goes through growing up (think My Big Fat Greek Wedding). When I was younger I was embarrassed of the food my mom packed me for lunch and the way my name sounded out-load. In college I was proud to be from a different country and to speak another language; it made me feel more cultured and unique. There was a time when I solely identified as Bulgarian and not American. But your identity is never that simple, and for an immigrant torn between cultures, identity can be a very messy concept. 44 days into my pilgrimage back "home" I can tell you I have never felt more un-Bulgarian.

What you can expect from this blog

My mother always jests that I should write a book about our family story, but this is a blog after all, so I'll spare you the generational drama. If you decide to come along on this journey, whether you pop in once in a while or follow along every step of the way, you are sure to discover a lot about this beautiful, anachronistic country I call home. You'll learn about its tumultuous political history, revel in its majestic mountain ranges, and peer into the lives of Bulgarian people, all while enjoying some incredible photography from my partner in crime. As human beings we are all on a journey of self-discovery. Whether conscious of it or not, we seek to understand why we are the way we are, where we came from and who we are meant to be.

I hope my ruminations about identity, culture, home, purpose and beyond resonate with your own journeys wherever you are in the world and however far along you are on your path. And if something ever does strike a chord, and you want to share your own experience as an immigrant, a traveler, a digital nomad, an expat or however you choose to identify yourself, drop a line in the comments, seriously. I love hearing people's stories and learning about others' experiences; it makes us feel connected and understood, in a time when the whole world could use a little compassion.