The first time I left Mexico in 2009 we moved to Australia. My firsborn was only few months old. We took this picture at the Toronga Zoo in Sidney, like any good tourist, we explored the city with great excitement.
I always felt ready to hop in a plane and live overseas. I imagined all the great things in the other side of the world that would be possible for me to see and to experience. When my husband and I accepted the job offer for him to join Cirque du Soleil on tour, I imagined all the exciting things around that opportunity, from getting free tickets for the shows, to seeing wild life up close. I was so excited about talking to people in english which was a language I always loved, I daydreamed about wandering around the city, having exotic food for dinner, and pretty much romanticized the whole idea…Little I knew that living as an expat it’s not only having fun and exciting days. Being an expat is not the same as being a tourist. There’s lots of lessons that are learned the hard way: broken friendships, tears, feeling inadequate, unanswered questions and thankfully also meeting new people with whom you might have new but a strong bond and looking at landscapes that surpass anything you could ever imagine while your brain expands by learning new words all the time and most important, new ways of thinking.
That is the real beauty of being an immigrant.
Learning and unlearning.
Becoming and reinventing.
Feeling proud and feeling embarrassed.
Victories and failures (or lessons, to sound less tragic).
It is all about unwrapping the gifts given by the new country that many of us end up calling home.
Expats, immigrants, refugees, migrant, exiled, whoever we “are”. We all share a story of great courage, resilience, problem solving and strength. Take heart, the most important part is in the journey, make sure you are awake through it all.
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