Being Away From Home

After moving though, I can say that one of the hardest things for myself personally was leaving my family and friends behind. The second time around was definitely easier due to the fact that the second time I left I was thirteen and in high school (in England you start high school in grade seven). When I came back to England after being away for fifteen months I rekindled with all my childhood friends and we all went off to high school together. After my first year in high school I was saying good bye to all my childhood friends again, and this time the new friends that I had made. Since we have moved back to Canada we have not been able to afford to go back and visit at all, which has made us all very homesick. We, as a family have missed …show more content…
While reading the “Moving Families: Expatriation, Stress and Coping” journal something I read on relationships with extended families caught my eye. Many of the families that were interviewed for their research commented saying they felt like they were “living between two worlds, especially when they were dealing across oceans with children left behind, and with family crises such as the ill health or death of parents” (). I can agree with this. Being away in a time of need can definitely make you feel like you are living in two different realities at the same time. Not many people understand this due to not coming from another country which makes it a more frustrating and lonely …show more content…
Not only did my parents have to find housing, employment, new banking, get their licenses, find a vehicle, make sure they only brought over what was allowed (due to regulations from customs), and buy all new furniture but they had to do it with three young children. For the most part my parents had no idea what Canada would bring to the table. In England we knew all the laws, norms, and had control over many aspects of our lives, when moving to another country you can only know so much when receiving little help. For example, when coming out to Canada my parents knew the major laws, so they knew they would not get in any major trouble but struggled more with the municipal ones. In England, we are allowed to parallel park on the side of road facing either direction, whereas in Canada all the cars have to be facing the same way. As immigrates we did not know this and were ticketed for parallel parking against the direction of the traffic. Not only that but in England we drove on the other side of the road, so many new things that we had and were expected to know were thrown at us all at the same time. It was little things like this that made Canada a lot harder to settle