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My name is Julianna Smolenski. I'm a 24 year old au pair living in Veldhoven, Netherlands. I grew up in a suburb of New York City on Long Island, took care of a grandmother with dementia from age 16-20, lived off the grid for a year, and planted seeds in sunny California before making my move to Europe. It's difficult to say how these moves have impacted me, if it's something about me that had caused me to move or if it's something about moving that had made me a certain way.

For as long as I can remember I felt estranged from the rest of the world. As if everything I did was always different, in a negative way, from everything everyone else did. I was right, although it's really not a negative thing. It is, however, exhausting... Constantly explaining myself to every curious passerby.