I’ve been here more that 4½ years now.

I think the opposite has happened to me. I don’t know how long you’ve been living in Cancun but I’ve been living in Paris for 6 years. Some people would say I am now fully integrated… a local. I work for a French company with only french coworkers, I speak, think and even dream in French, I eat like a french and I’m pretty sure I act like a French too (at least I find I don’t shock people as often as I used to when I first came here).

But I have yet to make friends here. Real friends. The kind that make you feel that this is the place where you belong.

And I’m pretty sure I am a friendly person, yet somehow I’ve noticed I unconsciously refuse to “invest” in friendships here. It’s almost always our friends (mainly friends of hubby) that call us to go out or invite us over and almost never the other way around. The few mexicans I’ve met here have also dissapointed me by being either too obnoxious (the kind that left Mexico to never go back and spend their time citing all that is wrong with our country compared to France) or either too isolated (the kind that hate it here don’t make any effort to integrate, always moaning and groaning about the French food, french attitude, etc, etc)

I also often think about going back home but, as you, I too wonder if it will still be “home”. I know that Paris will never fully be “chez moi” yet Puebla always seems so different and changed and hostile whenever I go back to visit that I’m not sure it’s still “home” either.

I guess it’s the eternal “expat” dilemma. I home really where the heart is????

Fned.
P.S. Apologies for all this blah-blah… I wish I could it put it much simpler and intelligently as you do in your post.