You will enjoy this newsletter if you are:
1. A permanent foreigner
And even a temporary one. Home is not anymore where you were born, home is anywhere you make it to be. The essays and short fiction you can read here are all told from a foreigner’s lens. Other names include: expat, traveller, migrant, third-culture kid.
2. Millennial
And also if you’re not, and you’re just interested in this generation. Millennials are not the kids of the world anymore. We’re in our 40s and we navigate a multilingual, multicultural, always-on-the-road life in our globalized society.
3. Culturally-curious
You are interested in habits, expressions, what is ‘normal’ in different societies and generally, you want to participate in the conversation about what it’s like to live a multicultural life, and not lose your true self along the way.
4. You like to ask ‘why’
I love the question ‘why’ and I’ve been asking it annoyingly often since I was a kid. By reflecting on why certain events happen, and certain experiences are the way they are, I believe I bring a little more color to an otherwise unexamined life.
About Millennial Monica
Essays, short stories and auto-fiction written from the foreigner’s lens. Reflections about what it’s like to be a migrant in our globalized world, and how not to lose yourself along the way.
Why ‘Millennial’
When the first wave of Millennials was coming of age, the Berlin Wall fell and the digital revolution would soon take place. The world opened up, travel and migration took off exponentially, like never before. The stories here outline the Millennials’ experiences in a globalized world, and one of those Millennials is me. A place to form a community around this generation.
[Why ‘Migrant’]
Leaving one’s childhood place, restarting life in a new country or traveling long-term - all of these leave a mark on us. A mark so profound that it shapes our identity, our behavior, and the way we connect with people. We are permanent foreigners. Writing about it and understanding a foreigner’s perspective fascinates me as well as helps me make sense of my own migratory journey.
* Note: ‘Migrant’ is not a part of my newsletter name as it would become a cumbersome three-way alliteration (Millennial Migrant Monica). But the concept is very much part of the essays and stories you will read here.
Why ‘Monica’
Well, this is the easy one. Monica is my name. But the newsletter is not just about me. It’s about all the ‘Monicas’ out there who see themselves in these stories, no matter your gender. We are all Monica. Although I share from my experience, I strive to make the personal universal.
Monica is an outsider looking in. Into physical spaces, into the homes of locals, into emotional spaces, into the hearts of those that come from a different culture which we can never truly access; into customs, language expressions or humor. Even if we grasp all of this almost entirely, there will still be an elusive bit that will always be out of our reach.
Please subscribe to Millennial Monica and let’s form a global community of permanent foreigners!
