I grew up in a small German village with a population of just 400. My parents ran a successful travel business, and I was expected to join the family firm but from early on, I longed for more: more culture, more chaos, more of the world.  So when a job in Singapore came up in my twenties, I jumped. What followed were seven years of culture shock—no monkey brains for me—but also of dating men who lived with their families, and slowly capturing that if I stayed, I might end up doing the same. My dream began to crack around the edges. I realized that I had overestimated my vision and thoroughly underestimated the complexity of my identity. I didn’t belong there, not fully. Yet the idea of returning to Germany made me nauseous. From Singapore, I landed in Paris—jobless and nearly wordless in French. But I kept chasing something: opportunity, identity, a place that felt like mine. I went back to school, perfected my French… and was offered a job at a newspaper that paid less than a decent baguette. When a better offer came—in Luxembourg—I took it. I stayed, restless and aware that I needed more than efficiency and low taxes.

It was in Belgium, through love, that I found a kind of peace I hadn’t expected. Love, it turned out, was the only force strong enough to settle my wanderlust and help me reimagine what “home” could mean. I returned to Germany not as the daughter meant to follow the family path, but as a woman who had drawn her own map.