I spent a large chunk of my adult life in a Central European country. We left definitively last autumn - a combination of my contract coming to an end, and it just being a stressful place to live. So we’re now back in U.K., new job, all fine.
Obviously I’ve still got a lot of friends there. I went back for a few days and did all the things I used to do, met friends for drinks, old neighbours for dinner in a local restaurant and went up to the mountains for a day hiking with a friend who lives there. It was when I was on the train back from the mountains that I was idly thinking things like “oh I must pick up some cat food from the corner shop on my way home”, before I realised that the cats are in U.K. and I don’t live there any more. I got the bus back from the station and it was my old bus, but my hotel was a couple of stops further on. Like I was on autopilot I got off at my old stop and was almost at my block before I remembered that I don’t live there any more, and walked back to the hotel.
It was just a very odd feeling, like everything was still the same, but wasn’t. It left me feeling quite sad, although I don’t want to go back there to live - that part of my life is over. Has anyone else felt something similar? DH thinks this is quite mad, but he never really settled there anyway and was glad to leave.