The illusion of stability in emigration

Viktoriia Kantseva brings us more interesting insights from the point of view of an immigrant living and working in Ireland in her column Through Immigrant Eyes...

There are different kinds of emigration. There is the planned one — when you prepare for years, learn the language, save money, build a clear plan and roughly understand what waits for you on the other side. And then there is forced emigration. The kind that doesn’t give you time to think properly. The kind where the plan feels fragile from the start, as if it might collapse at any moment. That was our kind.

When you leave like that, you immediately start looking for something solid. Something that feels like stability. Or at least something that gives you hope that stability still exists. For me, that thing became work. At first, it felt like the right answer. Logical. Responsible. Money meant control. Money meant options. Money meant that if something went wrong — and in our situation, something always could — we would be ready.

So I found one job. Then another. Then a third. Then a fourth. At some point, my working week quietly crossed the line into fifty-plus hours. Someone once joked that when you hit that point, the bottom knocks back. It didn’t knock — it just settled in. Work was everywhere. Money was coming in. And with it came the illusion that everything was finally under control. But life wasn’t there anymore.

That’s the trap of emigration no one really talks about. When you’re so busy building safety that you forget to live. When your head is full of responsibility, fear and plans for a tomorrow that still feels uncertain. When rest feels dangerous, and slowing down feels irresponsible. I stayed in that mode for longer than I should have. Even when my body started pushing back.

My back hurt constantly. Not in a dramatic way. In the dull, exhausting way that follows you through the day and into the night. The kind of pain you learn to ignore — until you realise how much energy it’s stealing from you. There were signs. Plenty of them. I just didn’t want to see them. Letting go of one job felt like tearing off a piece of stability. Like removing a plank from a bridge while still standing on it.

But when I did, something unexpected happened. I felt lighter. More present. More alive. With the same fear — and a little more honesty — I let go of another one. And another piece of the illusion fell away. What I slowly began to understand is this: The inner island we call “stability” is not fixed. It doesn’t stay strong forever, and it doesn’t collapse overnight either. It moves. It weakens. It rebuilds.

Back in 2022, ours was completely destroyed. Now, thanks to time, support and Ireland itself, it exists again. Not perfectly. Not permanently. But enough. Looking for safety in money is easy. Many emigrants do it — because so much else is out of our control. Documents. Statuses. Decisions that can be changed without asking us. Work and income feel like the one thing we can still influence. And so they become not just work, but protection. A plan. A shield.

But forced emigration is not always a story about growth and opportunity. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s exhausting. Sometimes it comes with losses that don’t fit neatly into success stories. What matters, I think, is where we place our focus. If we see only what was taken, the journey feels like sacrifice. If we allow ourselves to notice what was gained — even slowly — it stops being one.

I still work. I still like knowing that I can rely on myself. But I no longer confuse movement with safety. Stability, I’ve learned, isn’t something you earn by working harder. It’s something you slowly build inside — and sometimes it wobbles, and sometimes it holds. And maybe that’s enough for now. Not perfect stability. Not certainty. Just a life that feels like it’s still mine.