The mental cost of constant relocations

A chronicle of finding my way back to myself through small actions, routine, and weekend flowers

It took me about forty minutes to come up with a title and a subtitle for this text. Then I spent another hour typing and deleting the main body. Eventually, I erased everything and started from scratch — I just couldn’t make myself tell a half-truth, disguising internal turmoil as a simple story about moving.

A little over a month ago, I moved from Budapest to Zagreb. Around the same time, something inside me switched off — a kind of mechanism responsible for wanting anything at all. Just like that, with no clear external reason. And with it, the urge to write, to take photos, to share. The ability to fuel my life with dreams of new experiences, both present and future, disappeared without a trace. Some internal factory that used to produce emotional states cut my output down to just one: total indifference.

I rented this place on Airbnb for two weeks while looking for something more permanent. It had tons of potential, but was in pretty bad shape. The balcony was piled with junk, until one morning, in an attempt to save myself from the gloom, I cleaned it up and brought out a table and chairs to have coffee and read. And that neighbor? Iconic.

Losing interest in the things I love, in learning, in doing, and getting through daily routines like brushing my teeth purely on autopilot and willpower doesn’t sound great. And if I were capable of feeling fear, I probably would have felt it. But instead, I became a detached observer of my own apathy, fully aware that something was off. This wasn’t like me at all.

By the third week of total indifference, I gave myself a deadline. If I unpack the last moving box, hang the familiar art and other signs of home, set up a morning reading corner, find a market for weekly flowers, a running route, a sauna, a favorite café — if I manage to rebuild my daily rhythm and still feel nothing, I’ll ask for help.

All of last week, with a painfully blank face and through sheer effort, I worked to rebuild the foundation. And then, a few days ago, something started to flicker — some vague emotional responses, still dulled, but among them was a tiny hint of hope. Hope that maybe I didn’t need outside help after all, and that the breakdown really was just that: exhaustion. Exhaustion from the move, from the disrupted routine, from constantly having to prove to various systems that I’m not some clueless nobody, asking — begging, really — for a residence permit, for a lease contract. Please?

It doesn’t matter that I’ve handled plenty of other moves with resilience and even excitement. This time, my brain chose to cope with change differently. And who am I to blame it for wanting to shut down after so many years of drifting? Honestly, it’s a miracle it lasted this long.

Even this short text wasn’t easy to write. Still isn’t. But I managed to scrape the desire to start it and finish, and after a month of ringing emptiness, that feels like a pretty big deal.

Which means there’s a good chance I’ll get my usual self back — the one with ambition, curiosity, and that squeaky impatience for new experiences in yet another set of temporary rooms that, this time, I think I might actually like more than the last.

Bits and pieces of my new place, and the reading nook that makes it feel more like home. The last photo is the entryway — I particularly like it.