What Moving to A New Country Taught Me
Lessons were learned.
On the 12th of September 2021, I left my home country of Jamaica to continue my post-secondary education in the city of Edmonton, found in the center of the northern Canadian province of Alberta. Yes, I a young woman knowing only the scorching summers of my tropical home, decided to move to quite literally one of the coldest places on the planet. To say that it has been an adjustment would be an understatement
It has been one of the most difficult, painful, and enlightening experiences I think I would ever have undergone. Here are some of the lessons I learned.
Learning to love from a far……in more ways than I thought.
Due to the pandemic, I had to defer my 2020 enrollment and opted to start in 2021. My disappointment in having to do this was immense due to my feverish want to leave, mostly due to my strained relationship with my father. Growing up in Jamaica is not easy. Even though it is a beautiful country, it is one fraught with corruption, crime, and cultural discourse. So most parents teach their children how to go about their lives safely and pray that they will return home when they send them off into the world. My parents were no different, but my father was steps above the rest.
He was overbearing, overprotective, distrustful and a narcissistic individual whose word was law. I resented him and at times hated him. We even had a very large argument not long before I was slated to leave. And then the day after I left, he called me….crying. I’ve never seen my father cry, he didn’t even shed a tear at his own mother’s funeral. Only to see him on a video call, hiding away while he was at work, crying. After speaking with my godmother, who has always guided me in the more spiritually and emotionally difficult parts of my life. I began to see my father as less of a villain in my life but a very flawed and very hurt human. One who didn’t have a father who cared in his life and was raised in a way where his heart was hardened. His way of showing love was by providing for me and protecting me but without his verbal love and his emotional support, everything else seemed so insignificant.
But since, I’ve been away, he’s different oddly. We talk a lot more than when we were living in the same house even though that isn’t much. He calls me pet names and asks me about my day. The old adage that “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” seems to be very true. Do I think my father has changed solely due to my leaving? No, and I don’t think he will change very much. He’s fifty years old going on twenty-five. He is who he is and I will always find fault with his thinking but being away has made me appreciate him for who is and what he has done for his family. I do not love him because of his faults, I love him despite them and that is much easier when we are so far apart.
Blood is not thicker than water but understanding will always endure.
As I write this, I’m also in the process of leaving what I thought would be my permanent home while I was studying at my university. When leaving your home for the first time to live, study and work in a foreign land one would only think it would be best to have some family connection to ease the blow but that was far from the case. It has been anything but easy and it has felt like I could not do anything right. It was a completely different reality than what was painted for me before arriving in Canada and it was a painful reality that I had to face. But even in the midst of all this pain and turmoil, it was the kindness and understanding of strangers that has prevailed and has kept me going.
The unexpected want of other people to reach out and help a stranger. To soften the blow and offer guidance has moved me to tears too many times. It shows there is hope for us as a people, as a civilization, there is still a willingness to understand the human condition. It shows that blood is not thicker than water, in fact, this experience has shown me that blood is just as thin, volatile, and as easily disregarded as water. However, kindness and understanding will always endure.
The winter is taking its time drawing to a close, making way for spring. Slowly but surely I see buds coming up on trees I long thought dead and the rambunctious honking of the returning geese greet me as I walk along. It's a new season and a new beginning, and I am one that believes everything happens when they are supposed to. As I prepare for the end of my first academic year and the start of a long-awaited spring/summer season, I can only be optimistic, although cautiously for another new beginning.
