At this moment, many of my expat peers are finding themselves at a time of transition. Many are leaving their current cities, desperately searching for direction. Others are getting married or breaking up, quitting jobs and going to grad school. What unites these individuals is their nomadic lifestyle. Always ready to change and move. They are infinitely more educated and sophisticated than any of their friends back home who earn more money and have mortgages.  But they have far fewer possessions, as everything they own is in their suitcases. They have refined aesthetics, and ironically, only IKEA furnishes their rented flats. They are, in essence, still living like students.

In ways they are the Generation Y poster children. Highly-educated, highly idealistic, and so living out a Peter Pan sort of existence, and never hitting that milestone of buying a house. Unable to quench their thirst for learning they continue to move, country to country, collecting addresses and languages as they go. More money would be great but corporate hell is too high a price to pay to get it.  Many friends have left their high-paying corporate jobs to pursue something more creative for a fraction of their original salaries and though they are now eking out frugal existences they will not revert. Work to live, just enough to maintain their lifestyles.

It is daunting to observe what everyone else is doing, the normal people who decided to pursue normal lives. They are homeowners, they have a garage, cars, kids. The bohemian crew stand on the sidelines looking in watching the big ring, the big act. But whereas that show is played consistently every night, we are in the audience and we can move to any tent we want, anytime. The homeowners are the real adults, living adult lives, behaving like adults. Their real lives have already started. And many of us are internally battling the nagging fear that we are delaying our real lives by continuing to chase our idealistic dreams. When will we realize that eating pasta every night actually counts as starvation? Will we have to settle down with a mortgage for our real lives to begin? Or has it already begun? We convince ourselves that our real lives have not yet begun because we are living in temporary places, and by only committing to disposable furniture, we can move again.

The other day I was speaking to an expat friend living in Paris. He had made a move from the corporate world, gotten an MBA and was trying something new. And he was telling me, with the most soulful eyes I had ever seen, how all he wanted was a full-sized fridge. In his flat share with a view of the river and the mobility to pick up and move again, he bemoaned the tiny fridge he had that only came to his waist. He was losing the battle to postpone his real life.