Have you ever gone home to visit family and spent time with people you love, laughed, eaten way too much food, and genuinely enjoyed yourself, only to leave feeling a little… off?
Nothing noteworthy happened, and nobody said anything particularly hurtful. You love your family and you know that they love you. And yet, somewhere between the conversations about family friends you “kind of” remembered, the questions about your life that were surprisingly hard to answer, and the realization that your childhood bedroom is now being used to store things nobody knows what to do with, something feels different.
You feel a little out of place, maybe even a little lonely. And then you feel guilty for feeling that way, because what is there to complain about? You're loved, and you've built a really good life. In many ways, you've accomplished exactly what you set out to do.
So why does being home sometimes feel so complicated?
As a first-gen South Asian woman who's spent much of her life navigating different cultures, expectations, and ways of being, I know what it's like to move between worlds. And in my work as a therapist, I've sat with clients who describe that same feeling: loving where they come from while recognizing that they've changed in ways that can be difficult to explain to the people who knew them first.
I remember a client describing a visit with her parents. She loved going home, but lately she'd started to feel more like a visitor than someone who belonged there. She told me how hard it was to feel pulled between what her family wanted for her and the life she was building for herself. She understood her parents' point of view, but that didn't make the differences between them any easier to navigate.
I think about that a lot. Because sometimes, the hardest part of building a life of your own is realizing that the people you love don't always understand, or even agree with, the life you're creating. And trying to bridge that gap can take more energy than you realize.
Here's something I wish more people felt comfortable acknowledging: you can be grateful for the life you've built and still feel sad about what has changed along the way.
You can appreciate your parents' sacrifices and still feel the weight of their expectations; you can love your culture and still question certain traditions; and you can be proud of your accomplishments and still wish your family understood more about the person you've become.
For many first- and second-generation professionals, there's an unspoken expectation that success should make everything worthwhile. Your parents worked hard and made sacrifices and you had opportunities they didn't, so surely, the end result shouldn’t feel this complicated. But life doesn’t always work that way.
Sometimes moving forward means growing apart, and the people who love you most may struggle to understand parts of your life that matter deeply to you. You might miss the ease of being understood without having to explain yourself and there's a kind of grief in that. Not necessarily grief over losing a relationship, but grief over how a relationship has changed. And because nobody is necessarily at fault, it can be hard to know what to do with those feelings. You might even tell yourself you're being ungrateful. You're not.
These feelings can extend beyond your family. They can show up in your relationship with your partner. Maybe you're in a mixed-culture or mixed-faith relationship, and you're constantly explaining family expectations or helping your partner understand why a seemingly small interaction carries so much meaning for you. You might find yourself wishing that your partner could “just get” the part of you that you've spent your whole life trying to explain to other people.
This can also show up in friendships. You might have plenty of people to spend time with but very few you feel comfortable telling the whole story to. You're good at showing up, asking questions, and being the dependable friend, but when it comes to talking about the things you're struggling with, you find yourself editing, minimizing, or changing the subject. (Most of us weren’t taught to bask in the spotlight.)
Or maybe everything in your life looks good on paper, but you still feel disconnected in a way you can't quite explain. You're doing well, you're keeping up, and you're meeting expectations but somewhere along the way, you've become so accustomed to adapting to different people and situations, that you're not always sure where you get to just be yourself. That can be an uncomfortable realization, especially when you're someone who has always been good at figuring things out.
So, who are you when you're not trying so hard to be understood?
What do you actually want? Not what makes sense to your family or looks impressive to other people or what proves that all the sacrifices were worth it.
What actually feels right for you?
You might not have an immediate answer, and that's okay. If you've spent years learning how to read a room, meet expectations, and move comfortably between different worlds, it can take time to figure out what you think and feel when nobody else's expectations are in the foreground.
You don't have to reject where you came from to make room for who you are now - but you do deserve space to explore what that means, without feeling like you're betraying anyone.
That space might come from a conversation with a friend who gets it, by being more honest with your partner about who you are and what you need, or through therapy, where you can talk through complicated feelings without having to sound reasonable, grateful, or make things easier for someone else to understand.
You can be proud of where you came from and honest about where you are, and you can love your family and still want things to be different for yourself. Those things can all be true at once. You don't have to resolve that tension overnight. Sometimes, just being honest about the tension even existing is a good place to start.
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Ready to stop being the best-kept secret at work? If you're a first- or second-gen professional who's been doing great work but still not getting the recognition or opportunities you deserve, let's connect.
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Thanks for reading!
See you next month,
Minal