STUCK IN A LOOP: ON SETTING BASE WHEN CRAVING CONSTANT CHANGE

Every few years, my life resets. New country. New job. New people. New home.

It’s not by choice—it’s just how it’s always been. Since I was born, I’ve moved from one country to another every two to four years. First with my parents, then on my own, because it was the only way I knew how to live.

Now, almost three years into life in the Basque Country, the four-year mark is creeping up. The cycle is calling again. My pattern says it’s time to go. Should I dare myself to stay?

Identifying the pattern

I live in a loop I can’t seem to break. It’s specific: I can put numbers on it. It’s systemic: ingrained in me, no matter what happens in my life and how hard I try to change, it runs the next chapter and I can’t control it. I’ve come to recognise the mechanics of this pattern: I now know what fuels it, and when it shows up. Here’s how it goes:

1. I move to a new place
2. I find a new job
3. I lose my job—a series of bad luck in the past ten years has forced me to change jobs every one to two years: start-ups running out of money, COVID, burnout...
4. I get bored of where I live
5. I move to a new place
6. I find a new job
7. And it goes on, and on

It’s exhilarating. And exhausting.

I’m not fully in control of this loop, but I’m not entirely resisting it either. At some point, the external triggers became internalised. I now anticipate the shift before it happens. The craving for change builds gradually—first a whisper, then a roar.

That craving intensifies when I travel solo to remote places. Not the kind of travel where you escape to a comfortable resort. But the kind that cracks you open, flips your worldview upside down. During these travels, reality stops. Or it blooms? With just a backpack and nothing to hold me back, I can go everywhere. I can carry my house on my back. I like this feeling. Not being attached to anything, anywhere or anyone.

Ecuador reignited that spark last month—the same spark I felt in Senegal in March last year. When I returned to France, all I wanted was to leave again. The whisper murmurs: move out, it’s time to head to your new destination. If I ignore it, it growls louder. So I’ve been travelling about one month a year to break from the routine that inevitably suffocates me (and I’m privileged to have a job that enables me to do so).

But in doing so, I’m also feeding the loop. I’m willingly activating it. The more I travel, the more I want to start over.

What if I could just stay? Stop the cycle? Rest for a bit?

Indeed, something in me yearns for a base. A place I can call home. Somewhere where I feel I can belong. Somewhere I’m not trying to run away from.

That’s what I’ve been circling around, without fully naming it: a desire to feel rooted. Not stuck or settled forever. Just… rooted.

Finding a place where I can build my roots

I don’t have a childhood home I can return to, my own family being split between France and Lebanon. There’s no familiar bedroom waiting at my parents’. No lifelong circle of friends gathered in the same town each year. I don’t know that kind of home. My concept of a home has evolved from a place to a situation: a temporary arrangement that’s meant to be broken at one point. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don’t.

“A home is a safe haven and a comfort zone. A place to live with our families and pets and enjoy with friends. A place to build memories (…). A place where we can truly just be ourselves.”

After living in 8 countries and travelling to over 50, I’ve learned what I needed in my life to stay sane: surfing, good people I can be myself with, a comfortable place to sleep and chill in, my vinyl records, sunshine, and an international airport nearby. So I know that the place where I should settle—if ever—should reunite these elements.

The Basque Country ticks all the boxes.
Granted, a bigger international crowd would make it perfect.

Learning to live with the loop

For the first time in my life, I’m seriously considering setting roots despite the pull to start fresh in a new country. Here’s how I’m trying to break out of autopilot:

• Tracking life cycles. I’m trying to identify when and why I feel the urge to shake everything up.
  
  
• Differentiating discomfort from misalignment. Not every itch to leave means I’m in the wrong place. Sometimes I’m just bored. Other times, it’s my gut telling me something deeper. I want to learn the difference.
  
  
• Building anchors; rituals, routines, hobbies and friendships that move with me. These give me continuity even when the external setting changes.
  
  
• Staying past the itch. I can force myself to stay. If I stay in one place longer than four years, I’ll prove to myself that the pattern isn’t inevitable. Just one more year to go...
  
  
• Avoiding triggers. I know the danger zone is when I travel solo to remote places. It’s where I get the urge to drop everything and start a new life. What is it in these places that makes me feel like this? How can I can find or cultivate that back home?
  
  
• Building balance: I don’t have to choose between movement and stillness. I can build a base in the Basque Country and gift myself one trip a year to disconnect and feel free. If it’s the same fulfilling destination each year, it might quiet the craving for novelty.

Breaking these life patterns is tough. It’s a system on repeat. And right now, I’m trying to challenge it. I’m daring myself to stay. To find my community. Even though a part of me wants nothing more than to throw all my stuff into a container, grab my backpack, and fly back to South America.

But I know this is just escaping realities I don’t want to face.

What patterns are you trying to break?