10 years abroad
Aug. 26th, 2010 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avreliaAbroad means here.
A year ago I though we would be marking 10 years in Canada. I still feel very disconnected and discomfited by the fact that we are not.
10 years ago we flew out of Moscow, made a stop in Frankfurt, and landed in Vancouver. with two pieces of checked-in luggage and a carry-on bag each, and a major jet lag. We were mot immigrants - P has got a job, and it was kind of stupid to refuse a three year long contract in Canada, so here were we. With our books, CDs, tapes, and clothes.
We had a place to drop - P’s employer rented an apartment for us, and even though we hated it, we stayed there for the first six months.
The first week I spent mostly asleep - my inner clock refused to change and accept 11-hour difference. We did have short excursions here and there, to look around, to buy household stuff - we needed everything, and we had no money- almost. Our English, of course, was beyond pathetic - but we got by, and thankfully, there was a lot of Russian colleagues who were in the same situation and soon became our friends.
It was a strange time. I was very unhappy, and yet I was enjoying my life. I felt dead at the thought of staying there, but there were so wonderfully interesting things there! So much to explore, to learn! Now, seven years later, I don’t miss BC as a nice place to live. What do I miss? People. I met lots of great people there - some became my friends, some were passing acquaintances that I remember with warmth and gratitude. Apart from people - Boundary Bay park and strawberry cheesecake from Safe-on-Foods. And morning light. And watching Buffy for the first time...
There are a lot good memories and stories from that time, but what I remember the best is my depressed mood, due the painful feeling of loss - the loss of purpose, loss of identity I was proud of, loss of things that were dear to me and that I left in Russia. Is it a wonder I felt for Buffy so much?
I welcomed the move to Toronto in August 2003. We finally got permanent residence, and the future was full of hope. I felt energetic and eager to do something about my life in Canada. I started this lj and started to make friends to talk about Buffy and everything else. I liked Toronto, I felt much more personally comfortable here, than in BC, I liked the sight of the crowds, I like to bitch about the weather... The life was not very comfortable, but a lot of fun, a graduate student life for my P, and by extension, for me.
in 2004 I got a job, started evening classes in college, and felt myself a real human being finally. Things were looking up. I hated the job, but I liked the money, and I hated looking for another job even more.
on the other hand - in the short period of one year I lost three of my grandparents and I couldn’t do anything to help them or my family. It was the worst feeling.
I realised that my situation was precarious - my job was perfect match to my skills, but there was hardly ever another just like this. So I had nowhere to go i that direction. In other direction - I got my legal assistant certificate, and I didn’t like any opportunities that opened to me with it.
2005 and 2006 were mostly fun. in 2005 I was the proud breadwinner for the family, in 2006 we finally had two incomes and the relative comfort that came with it. We even moved from not so good neighbourhood of Eglinton-Dufferin to Davisville, much closer to our workplaces, friends and many interesting things. in 2006 I also went to Writercon in Atlanta that was a really huge deal to me - I have never travelled by myself to a place I didn’t know.
2007 was a happy year, the baby year. Half of it I worked a lot, another half I spent on maternity leave, feeling very much on the right track.
in 2008 the question loomed about return to work. I planned to return and had to arrange daycare and everything. Another thing became painfully obvious: how far away my life and my problems were from the lives and problems of Canadians with roots close by. At my “new moms” group that I attended in February of that year I was the only immigrant. We were the same age, education, etc. All planned to go back to work. But there was such a chasm between things we were worried about and the things we were willing to spend money on.
in August 2008 we moved to Mississauga, to be closer to P’s work, to have a better apartment and daycare for D. What we didn’t expect was that the move will cut us off from almost all social connections. I returned to work only to quit it in a righteous huff. I started to look for another job, but soon enough we decided to keep D at home, and I started an exciting career of a stay-at home mom who also tries to write stuff she always wanted to write. It was crazy lonely. I felt lovely and crazy, and other things didn’t go as great as we planned. So the move anywhere was welcome, but... I have just started settling, got some friends, got used to everything...
I miss Toronto, I miss Ontario, but the thing I miss the most is our hopes that never came true there, and never will come true there. When I look back I see flashes of my life over the six and a half years I smile, because I remember myself then and there and how much hopes I had, and how I seemed to myself perfectly normal, not much apart from the crowd around me. And then the sadness comes because that pleasant feeling left me, and the hopes I had, we had had never realized. maybe we should have done things differently, looking for other jobs, studying other things. That time passed. We are were we are, and we are now in the most precarious position in the whole ten years. What about friends? I’ve made several very good friends in Toronto and Mississauga. but way less than I’ve made in Vancouver. Unless I count all my virtual friends, you. Which I totally count.
Ten years. Scary number. I wonder where I end up in the next ten years. I miss Moscow still, by the way. But sometimes I feel that the Moscow I miss doesn’t really exist anywhere but my memory, so I can’t go there, as well.
A year ago I though we would be marking 10 years in Canada. I still feel very disconnected and discomfited by the fact that we are not.
10 years ago we flew out of Moscow, made a stop in Frankfurt, and landed in Vancouver. with two pieces of checked-in luggage and a carry-on bag each, and a major jet lag. We were mot immigrants - P has got a job, and it was kind of stupid to refuse a three year long contract in Canada, so here were we. With our books, CDs, tapes, and clothes.
We had a place to drop - P’s employer rented an apartment for us, and even though we hated it, we stayed there for the first six months.
The first week I spent mostly asleep - my inner clock refused to change and accept 11-hour difference. We did have short excursions here and there, to look around, to buy household stuff - we needed everything, and we had no money- almost. Our English, of course, was beyond pathetic - but we got by, and thankfully, there was a lot of Russian colleagues who were in the same situation and soon became our friends.
It was a strange time. I was very unhappy, and yet I was enjoying my life. I felt dead at the thought of staying there, but there were so wonderfully interesting things there! So much to explore, to learn! Now, seven years later, I don’t miss BC as a nice place to live. What do I miss? People. I met lots of great people there - some became my friends, some were passing acquaintances that I remember with warmth and gratitude. Apart from people - Boundary Bay park and strawberry cheesecake from Safe-on-Foods. And morning light. And watching Buffy for the first time...
There are a lot good memories and stories from that time, but what I remember the best is my depressed mood, due the painful feeling of loss - the loss of purpose, loss of identity I was proud of, loss of things that were dear to me and that I left in Russia. Is it a wonder I felt for Buffy so much?
I welcomed the move to Toronto in August 2003. We finally got permanent residence, and the future was full of hope. I felt energetic and eager to do something about my life in Canada. I started this lj and started to make friends to talk about Buffy and everything else. I liked Toronto, I felt much more personally comfortable here, than in BC, I liked the sight of the crowds, I like to bitch about the weather... The life was not very comfortable, but a lot of fun, a graduate student life for my P, and by extension, for me.
in 2004 I got a job, started evening classes in college, and felt myself a real human being finally. Things were looking up. I hated the job, but I liked the money, and I hated looking for another job even more.
on the other hand - in the short period of one year I lost three of my grandparents and I couldn’t do anything to help them or my family. It was the worst feeling.
I realised that my situation was precarious - my job was perfect match to my skills, but there was hardly ever another just like this. So I had nowhere to go i that direction. In other direction - I got my legal assistant certificate, and I didn’t like any opportunities that opened to me with it.
2005 and 2006 were mostly fun. in 2005 I was the proud breadwinner for the family, in 2006 we finally had two incomes and the relative comfort that came with it. We even moved from not so good neighbourhood of Eglinton-Dufferin to Davisville, much closer to our workplaces, friends and many interesting things. in 2006 I also went to Writercon in Atlanta that was a really huge deal to me - I have never travelled by myself to a place I didn’t know.
2007 was a happy year, the baby year. Half of it I worked a lot, another half I spent on maternity leave, feeling very much on the right track.
in 2008 the question loomed about return to work. I planned to return and had to arrange daycare and everything. Another thing became painfully obvious: how far away my life and my problems were from the lives and problems of Canadians with roots close by. At my “new moms” group that I attended in February of that year I was the only immigrant. We were the same age, education, etc. All planned to go back to work. But there was such a chasm between things we were worried about and the things we were willing to spend money on.
in August 2008 we moved to Mississauga, to be closer to P’s work, to have a better apartment and daycare for D. What we didn’t expect was that the move will cut us off from almost all social connections. I returned to work only to quit it in a righteous huff. I started to look for another job, but soon enough we decided to keep D at home, and I started an exciting career of a stay-at home mom who also tries to write stuff she always wanted to write. It was crazy lonely. I felt lovely and crazy, and other things didn’t go as great as we planned. So the move anywhere was welcome, but... I have just started settling, got some friends, got used to everything...
I miss Toronto, I miss Ontario, but the thing I miss the most is our hopes that never came true there, and never will come true there. When I look back I see flashes of my life over the six and a half years I smile, because I remember myself then and there and how much hopes I had, and how I seemed to myself perfectly normal, not much apart from the crowd around me. And then the sadness comes because that pleasant feeling left me, and the hopes I had, we had had never realized. maybe we should have done things differently, looking for other jobs, studying other things. That time passed. We are were we are, and we are now in the most precarious position in the whole ten years. What about friends? I’ve made several very good friends in Toronto and Mississauga. but way less than I’ve made in Vancouver. Unless I count all my virtual friends, you. Which I totally count.
Ten years. Scary number. I wonder where I end up in the next ten years. I miss Moscow still, by the way. But sometimes I feel that the Moscow I miss doesn’t really exist anywhere but my memory, so I can’t go there, as well.
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Date: 2010-08-27 04:27 am (UTC)No answers here, just lots and lots of ::hugs::
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