Hayley Donigan takes us on a personal journey on why and how she took the big move to London from her home in California.

Southern California sunlight is generous in its abundance. But its unwavering constancy can also feel relentless. 

Seasons move from one to the next by calendar only. Rainy days are rare and novel.

How does one orient oneself in that climate?

Why I made the big step to move to London

In the early 2000’s, I was a teenager putting together a vision of what life after high school would look like. Somewhere in my gut, I knew that where I grew up wasn’t where I would thrive moving forward. 

That was when the most formative decision of my life took shape.

As a dual citizen, I filled out the forms to get a British passport. I applied to universities in the UK. I got on a plane. 

And 16 winters later, I’ve never looked back.

‘Why would you leave California?’

The most common question I’m asked as an American living in the UK is, ‘Why would you leave California?’ 

I now live in London, a city that speaks 300 languages. I enjoy universal healthcare, public transportation, and social security. I’ve studied, worked, voted, and protested here.

But what I value most is harder to quantify.

In California, life often felt structured around convenience and distance. You drive everywhere. You plan your days around traffic. Space is abundant, but it can feel isolating.

In London, life happens in closer proximity. You walk. You overhear conversations in different languages on a single Tube journey. You are constantly brushing up against other lives and perspectives.

In California, travel felt like something you saved for. Limited time off. Long flights. A sense that the rest of the world was far away.

Here, movement feels embedded in everyday life. Borders are closer. Travel can be slower and more intentional. It has reshaped how I experience being somewhere.

What I value about living in London

I like how I can try any type of food imaginable here. How I don’t have to drive. How choosing life and travel over work from time to time does not feel like a deviation from the norm.

I like the history and culture right on my doorstep. The free museums and world-class events. Book signings, gallery openings, and the constant movement of people from all over the world.

The United Kingdom feels progressive to someone who grew up in one of the US’s most reliable conservative strongholds. It feels like a place where I can be myself.

And every spring, I’m surprised and delighted by the appearance of snowdrops and daffodils.

Would I ever go back to California?

The second most common question I’m asked is, ‘Will you ever go back?’

Some people have everything they want and need right where they were born. Sometimes, I’m jealous of those people.

Moving across the world is a challenge that is difficult to grasp unless you’ve done it. Culturally, logistically, and psychologically.

I’ve saddled myself with a burden that I’ll carry forever: the pain of having only half of my heart with me at all times. Now, whether I stay or return, calculating time differences will always be part of my day-to-day. Jet-lag and goodbyes will remain a familiar foe.

Choosing where to live is choosing what part of yourself to lose. I will never again belong in just one place.

But I had to sacrifice something to gain something else. I live somewhere that inspires me and better supports my worldview.

So goes the archetype of the immigrant experience, the one my parents and great-grandparents have felt, along with millions around the world today. 

I was forged in the US, but I belong in the UK. As painful as it is, my daily life validates my choice to leave my home behind.

How the States has become foreign to me

Moving will inevitably, as bell hooks wrote, “transform one’s perception of the world of home”. For good or bad, it is the only way to gain this perspective in depth.

Hybrid life gave me a new perspective on the place I left. Glorious weather, safety, and access to wonderful schools, parks and libraries were simply the water I swam in. 

Until 2010, I’d never slipped on ice before. 

But I also see what it can’t give me. And over time, I’ve become increasingly foreign to my own home. And it has become more foreign to me. 

The reality is that sometimes, where you’re from is incompatible with the life you want to lead. As much as you wish it was. 

For many Americans, this is increasingly so.

It’s not that I don’t love where I’m from. But I am no longer only from there.

I now relish the seasons. But I have an entirely new appreciation for the sun.

‘The foreignness softens’ – becoming part of English culture

Somewhere between my first glass of Pimm’s and my fifteenth Bonfire Night, the foreignness softened. I stopped converting pounds into dollars in my head. I developed opinions about Tube routes. I found myself complaining about the weather with the authority of someone who had endured it.

To be in another country long enough to have routines, neighbours, and gripes is a special privilege. Your sense of self, reality, and home all shift. Often in ways you could have never predicted.

I’ve learned to live with a gnawing grief for the home I left behind. My entrenched beliefs are challenged in uncomfortable ways. I’m humbled over and over again.

And I’ve experienced the lightness of new discoveries. The contentment that comes from weathering the storm. Deeper depths and broadened wisdom. I have been welcomed into a community. 

None of this would have occurred otherwise.

The world was very different in 2010, and so was I. Moving abroad has rearranged me, but it has also given me freedoms I never fathomed. 

The gravity of that decision I made hits me every time I pack my suitcase.

As a fellow immigrant in London, Oscar Wilde, once wrote, “hearts live by being wounded”.