Writing a Journal

When you leave your country to live elsewhere, it can be a difficult transition. When the language is also different, it adds to the "detachment" you have relating to your origins. Sometimes it's easy to feel like you just left yourself behind.

When I made the choice to move to the United States, I did so knowingly. I knew I would need time to learn English (and I'm still learning obviously). I knew that it might be a while before I can start teaching full time. I knew that the American mentality would take some getting used to. I came in with an open mind, and ready to learn and adapt.

In some ways, it was easier than I had anticipated. Americans are a lot easier to deal with than it is believed from the outside (don't get on me about this, I didn't make the world!). My adventure with Weight Watchers have given me a chance to get to know people, and to understand their lives more than I would have from our 1 bedroom apartment in the city!

I met, and still meet, wonderful people, who are caring and funny and just a joy to be around, both among the members and the staff.

My husband has also been a wonderful support in this. Always believing in me, always happy to help me out and support me when I need it. Always there when I feel down, and ready to celebrate my victories!

The part that I had not anticipated is the feeling that I'm just losing myself in this. I don't know really how to explain it, my goals, my ambitions, my abilities seem to vanish in the whirlwind of just trying to keep going in this "strange world". It's like I've lost sight of who I am.

I rarely talk to my friends anymore, and frankly, I don't know what to talk about with them. I live in a different country, doing different things, mostly things that they might not understand. My life is so different to what it was in Canada, that I just don't know how to relate to those who knew me then.

Here I have friends, but they've known me only for a few years. They can relate to what I'm doing now, but have no clue of what my life was before I moved out. It's so alien to them that they can't relate to it. Again, I don't know where to start, how to make the connection.

I'm in the process of trying to find a teaching position, and I'm not very successful at it so far. That with everything I've just talked about has been heavy on me lately. I'm not sure anymore of what I really want to do, where I want to go. Do I keep trying to get a teaching job? Do I go back to Weight Watchers full time? Do I drop everything and move back home? What do I want?

To help me figure it out, I've decided to start writing a journal. Funny thing is, my first hesitation was "Do I write it in French? or in English?". It pretty much sums up my problem right now doesn't it?

I decided to write in French for two reasons:

First, I'm trying to find myself. As much as I'm trying, awkwardly, to blend in American society, I'm not an American. I'm French Canadian and "Acadienne", my language of birth is French, and that is part of who I am. I think that if I want to figure this out, it's important to connect to that.

Second, I want to use this as a tool to figure myself out. That means admitting things that I haven't even admitted to myself, much less my husband and/or my friends. I have nothing to hide, but it feels safe to know that nobody around me can understand what I'm writing in there. I get to process the feelings, the thoughts before they get out there in the world.

I'm hoping that this will help me go further in my journey of life. I've made so many changes and have learned so much in the last 6 years or so. This is just a tool to go further and learn more.

Does the quest to know and understand oneself ever end?

Be good n stuff!