I married an American and left the UK. I had to start over and rebuild my identity in the US.

Russell and his wife met at the University of Cambridge.

Courtest of Matthew Russell

I never thought I'd live outside the UK, where I'd lived my whole life, until I met my future wife at the University of Cambridge.We were both pursuing master's degrees, and were introduced during orientation day. We got along instantly and started dating in November 2019. A few months later, in 2020, the COVID pandemic hit, and we had to evacuate the university for our hometowns: me to Wales and her to Philadelphia.Long distance became our grueling reality for the next four years, while she was in NYC, and I was in London. We facetimed regularly, sometimes multiple times a day, but only saw each other a few times a year. In 2022, she moved from NYC to Chicago to pursue a PhD at Northwestern University. We got married two years later, and I was granted a pathway to stay in the US as a green card holder, exchanging much of my UK life for a new adventure in Chicago.It was exciting at first, but when the newness tapered off after about 6 months, I realized I was living in a place with no established friend group or professional network. Faced with the quiet uncertainty of starting over, I realized I needed to make new friends and communities to feel more settled.During that journey, three things helped me feel like I belonged in the US.