emigrating

~ I had to write this for school.. and figured i should share it with you... I wasn't allowed to mention my faith in it, so i didn't.. which was hard, but still it captures a lot of what i felt then, 5 years ago, when i moved to Canada from Holland~

I had never felt so lonely in a place full of people. As long as I remember I had been around people I knew, who loved me, and cared about me. I was happy in the place I lived, and had things planned out for the future, my future. Many of my friends had the same dreams as I did, we all wanted to get out of high school, college and then get rich fast. No parent or teacher could tell us strong-minded teenagers what to do. We know what life was, understood the principles and morals of life, and especially how to be ourselves. That was when I was thirteen, a young and energetic girl with lots of giggly friends and cool ideas. I knew where I was and where I wanted to ‘go’ in the future, as in what I wanted to pursue and accomplish in life. I knew what I wanted. Others had different plans.
My parents were people with great, adventurous, and exciting plans. Or so they thought. To me it seemed that they just did what they wanted, and did not care about others, about me. They seemed to have forgotten about me, my wants, my ‘needs’, and my wishes! That was then. I was thirteen, knew everything, and mostly knew that I did not want to emigrate. But we did anyway, and moved to a lonely country, an ocean to swim across and then miles and miles of land that had to be covered too. An enormous distance that separated me from my loved ones, from my friends, from my life; many kilometers and a day in the airplane which would change my life forever!
It was on November 11, 2004. As I sat in a chair in the huge halls of Chicago airport, my previous excitement vanished. I knew then that I was alone, by myself, and I was to fight through this all. I was the one who had to survive, and had to do it myself. No one could help me with it, and I had the choice of how to do it. I figured the best we to survive was to continually think about my return to the Netherlands, upon my eighteenth birthday, and to never go back to Canada again. I could easily just not connect to people and be isolated from the rest of Canadian society.
Two weeks after our arrival in Alberta I had to face the facts. I had to learn the language, and go to school. Surely I pretended to do my best as I learned English, but wasn’t actually trying that much. I would not need it anyway! It was an easy excuse for me, an option for me not to connect to the strange Canadians and be the true Dutchie as I was.
That is what left me on the lonely side; my ignorance to become more Canadian and learn the language, my stubbornness to connect with people and become part of the culture that exists in this country. I was alone because I didn’t have any friends, didn’t know the language very well at all, and did not make an effort to get any of that. People must have thought that I was very strange and annoying, because I continually asked questions about English and what things meant, but never wanted to do stuff with girls in my class or hang out with people in my church. I was alone and isolated.
No one understood me and no one wanted me. I remember coming home from school and just crying for hours. It happened almost daily. It was a way for me to let out all my emotions, all my frustrations, and inability to communicate. I was alone, alone in my process of becoming used to Canada, to its life style and its people. I was alone in learning the very smallest details of the English language, the concepts of grammar, and the exceptions that came along with all the rules. Alone in finding who I was, what I wanted, and how I would become used to life here. I was alone in so many ways. And yet not alone.
There were students in my class, teacher in my school, ladies in my church, and families in my town, all people who were more than willing and able to help me. They were open to that opportunity of helping others because so many of them had immigrated at a young age themselves. So many had gone through the same things I was going through, and the understood. However, I was unwilling and unable to accept that at that time. I had to learn the hard way that I was not alone, but that it was me who made me alone. It was me who ignored all the signs along the path I took that said, “if you need help, come over here,” and “my house is always open, you’re welcome to come and talk.” It was as if I drove only looking ahead and blinded to the signs and cautions that were put on the side of the road to help me get to the destination. It was as if those signs didn’t exist for me, because I was alone, and no one wanted to help me. It was as if I was alone, because I didn’t want to be together with others, I didn’t want to be accepted and included. If I would have been accepted and included, how would I ever return to the Netherlands? I would have to break up my relationship with Canada like I had done with Holland not too long ago. I would not only have to break up but go through the feelings of a broken heart once again. I just simply could not become involved with and attached to people here. I could not because it would put me in a much more vulnerable spot that I was already in.
I was alone. I was lonely. I was miserable, and unbearable. No one could stand me, my family did not me anymore, and most of all, I didn’t know myself. I did not know who this lonely girl was, because I’d never met her before. I was never alone before, had never experienced not having friends. I had never cried so much and felt so depressed.
And then winter came. It wasn’t just over in a week or two, or maybe a month; instead, it lasted from the end of November until the end of April. It was cold, it was gloomy, it was lonely. No flowers, no birds, no life, no green, no acceptance. I was lonely, and just me, it was my whole entire being; my heart and my soul, that was what was lonely. I was a lonely me, in a place full of people, in a land where everyone is willing to help and to assist, to encourage and listen. My stubborn Dutch nature gave no room for those people to help, because I wanted to coupe with it by my self. I wanted to be alone. Even though it hurt, wasn’t easy, and made me terribly sad.

~I do want to thank everyone who helped me through that time.. all the people who were there for me in the beginning of my life in Canada. Thank them for all their support and encouragement, for their prayers and their love and acceptance. Thank you all for being there for me even though I ignored it, and was too stubborn. Thank you for welcoming me and making me feel at home, here. I also want to thank all those people who came along later on, and also encouraged me, helped, accepted and prayed for me. For all those people who are willing to here and to listen, and to help. I would not have come to this point without you all.. But most of all, I thank the Lord for helping me through the immigration and the time that followed. For giving me strength, energy and courage, and most of all for taking me into Thy family! Now I am not alone any longer, for I am His and He is mine!