An Australian woman has opened up about her regret over moving back home after living in London for three years, saying she is “grieving a life she’ll never live again”.
Kiwi-born traveller Lindsay Blog has recently moved back to Sydney and posted on TikTok asking if anyone else could relate to her experience.
“So, I left London after living there for three years. I abruptly came back to Australia, and I want to know if anyone else has been feeling what I’ve been feeling,” Lindsay said in a video posted to her TikTok account linzblog_.
She said since moving back, she hasn’t been able to shake the feeling that she’s “grieving a life that I’m never going to live again – which is living in London through my 20s.”
Lindsay said she is incredibly grateful for her time in London mostly because living so close to Europe made travelling more affordable, and she has only now realised how far Australia is from the rest of the world.
“I am so grateful that I travelled so much when I lived in London. There were times I didn’t even know how I was going to afford to travel Europe, but I would literally book the flights on a bank holiday… I always found a way,” she added.
“Now that I’m in Australia, I am realising how far away Australia is from the rest of the world.
“I just paid an extraordinary amount to fly to Greece in a month, and I’m just feeling so grateful that while I was in London, I prioritised travelling Europe so much, because it is cheaper to fly Europe when you’re based in London.”
She admitted that while living in London is not for the faint-hearted and she felt like she was “drowning” at times, she often looks back through her camera roll, wishing she could return to the life she used to live.
“Living in London, don’t get me wrong, is so expensive. Since being back in Australia, I have realised how much better the quality of life here is, and how much cheaper things are,” she admitted.
“The pay is better here, and the overall hustle is not as much. It’s much more manageable. I feel like in London, I was constantly drowning in bills, and if there was one week I missed, I would drown.
“But I’ve been in Australia for two months, and I think I’m grieving London. I keep looking at my life there and think, ‘I want that’, but I just have to keep focused on the reasons I came back to Australia.”
Commenters were divided over London, with some describing it as an “addictive” city that gets “less fun over time”.
“London is a poor quality of life, but it is addictive,” one person commented.
“Same. I lived in London for years, and I’m back in Ireland, and have more money,” another person wrote.
Another commenter said that “people are so much friendlier” in Australia but “the energy of London is hard to match”.
“And you’re right too. It’s about the time period as well as the place. London gets less fun as time goes on.”
A fourth person commented: “Honestly, me right now. It’s so expensive in London.”
Another commenter said that they “hate London” and are “planning to move at the end of this year”.
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