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| Maple trees and sloping eaves |
It’s been a year.
Exactly a year since we moved to Canada. Twelve months to the day since we
embarked as a family on another great adventure.
This week we moved
into a nice little house that’s more to our tastes in a slightly different part
of town that suits us better. An older neighbourhood,
bit more urban, bit more socio-economically and culturally mixed, closer to the
train station, walking distance to our town centre, the lake, all that. It
feels more us. The bedrooms are up in the eaves and sloping roofs are friendly
roofs.
That’s not to say our
old place wasn’t nice too. Well, the house itself was a bit crap, but I stand
by my blog post last summer about our extraordinarily lovely neighbours.
However, the official line, the line I cheerily tell people when they ask is
that we’ve found moving to Canada far more expensive and far more difficult
than we ever expected. The job hunt for me has been abysmal, and it’s just that
much harder emigrating with children, and basically, we moved to Chris’s home
neighbourhood and we just can’t afford to stay there.
But the trees are
really quite lovely.
I’ve been thinking
that a lot of late - the trees are really quite lovely. They are, but it does
rather imply that I’m in the Fire Swamp.
Little and
middle-sized mammalian garden critters who try to eat our garbage aside, it’s
less fire swamp and more slow death by suburbia. Most of the time I can be very
objective and positive about the good things we’ve found here, but the truth is
I’m miserable. Some days when I can’t maintain the philosophical façade, I
wonder if it’s chemical rather than circumstantial. But if it is just circumstantial,
is it the whole emotional whirlwind that is immigration and settling your family
and job hunting and job rejection, or is it that I’m more suited to city life
than the suburbs? Or is it Canada? Could it be that I’m not suited to Canada?
I never expected to be
singing this immigrants’ song. It’s positively ungrateful - I’m educated,
English-speaking, white. I’m the demographic that’s supposed to have it easy.
I’ve met people, I’ve made some friends (expats mostly, because I’m an
immigrant), I’ve tried to get involved, I’ve slowly made some work contacts,
I’ve joined a choir and get to sing regularly in the lovely old centre of
downtown Toronto. I didn’t even mind that terrible winter we just had.
But I just don’t feel
like I belong here. Or it doesn’t belong to me.
Tomorrow might bring a
different response and unhappiness has precious little perspective, so I’m not
going to link this post to my numerous wry observations about Southern Ontarian
life. This will not be an immigrant’s complaint. After all, it’s only been a
year and on paper the months ahead have promise: I like our new little house, I
like the neighbourhood. It’s compact, but there’s more room for me to breathe.
I have work prospects, but my optimism is extremely cautious. We’ve signed a
two-year lease and I’m not making any longterm promises beyond that.
And here’s the rub, I
don’t want to go “home” either. What has become very apparent these last twelve
months is how much I miss Britain. On my most dark, lonely days, I can’t help
but think that I made such a huge mistake moving back to New Zealand in 2008.
At the time, it seemed the very best decision for me and for my family, but that
wonderful thing hindsight suggests it was the wrong move for my career and for
me. Right now it feels like I’ve made yet another bad decision. Or when I’m
feeling a little too fatalistic, like I’m paying for that first incorrect
choice.
But it doesn’t help
anyone being fatalistic, and we’re here. Things have been topsy-turvy like your
standard immigrants’ experience, and, on paper at least, things are looking up
for our sophomore year.
And the trees are
really quite lovely.
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