6 Years in America

Wow. 6 years ago I applied for a religious workers visa at the Niagara Falls border and entered onto American soil to marry my foreign love and start a new life with him.
I have to admit, I am happy here. I also have to admit, in the same breath, that I miss Newfoundland more today than ever before. The homesickness doesn't get better with time...it gets much worse.
I think having children makes me miss Newfoundland so much more now...because not only am I so far from my family, whom I am very close with, and friends I have known my entire life but it's just such a wonderful place to raise children. I can't help but day dream about living life there again...
But for now, I have a great life here. I remember as a child, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) would air Disney movies on Sunday nights. I remember looking at the Magic Kingdom and thinking I'd never see it...my grandparents would board a plane every November and escape to St. Petersburgh, Florida until April. When they came back, their skin would be 8 shades darker and they would bring us the latest electronics because those were always cheaper in 'the states'.
I'd flip through their photo albums and look in awe at the palm trees, as though they were vacationing on some other planet.
Nan would tell me about how big the bugs were there and I would shutter at the thought of it...I pictured scorpions running through people's homes like normal house hold pests.
When I was 16, I started watching Saturday Night Live and learned the majority of my American political information from watching comedy sketches about the 2000 election...Will Ferrell made a convincing George Bush.
My first year of University, my friend Nevin convinced me to apply to a summer camp in North Carolina where he had worked the previous summer. I did and I was accepted. In June 2002 I boarded a plane and made my first official trip to America. I imagined that it was going to be hot, so I only brought bed sheets, no blankets...my first night on American soil I learned the power of air conditioning the hard way...I thought I was going to freeze to death that night. I had never experienced that kind of cold inside while it was so hot outside...
I also was amazed at the height of the trees and road signs...and I learned that the North Carolina sun is more potent than the Newfoundland rays I was used to. Ouch.
After marrying Jay (who I met that summer at camp) we spent a year in SC then our jobs with the Salvation Army brought us to Florida. We spent Valentines Day, 2005 at the Magic Kingdom and it was a truly magical experience...I never thought I'd see Disney World...I've been one time since and unfortunately it had lost it's luster...what was once mysterious and magical has become overpriced, overcrowded and overheated ;)
I've learned a lot since landing in the US of A. I've learned that in many, many ways, I am not unlike my neighbours to the south....and I've learned that in many, many ways, Newfoundland culture sets me apart from any other. I've learned that nurture may be a more powerful force than nature...that not just 'how' a person is raised, but 'where' a person grows up can really shape the way they view politics, economics, community...even Jesus.
I've learned that I am a product of my Newfoundland upbringing in the same way that my American neighbours are a product of theirs. Even though I have been here for 6 years, I still feel very foreign...sometimes that's a good feeling, sometimes it isn't.
I think what most people misunderstand about me is that I am from Newfoundland. Newfoundland is very, very different from the rest of Canada...what I usually hear is, "I've been to Niagara Falls. It's so clean over there in Canada!" or "Newfoundland? How close is that to Toronto?"
Most people don't realize that Newfoundland is the most easterly point of North America, closer to England than it is to Ontario. Our culture is more related to Ireland, culturally, than it is to Canada...and Newfoundland was a colony of Britain until 1949 when it joined Canada after a slim 51%/49% vote. Some people there still refuse to call themselves Canadian..they consider themselves purely Newfoundlanders. We have a funky irishy accent, we drink too much from time to time, we love Celtic music, we look out our windows and see ragged cliffs, rugged coastlines, rolling tundra and beautiful North Atlantic scenery. Those of us who grew up 'out around the bay' remember safe childhoods that consisted of A LOT of outdoor play...skating on the frozen ponds, sliding (sledding), bike riding, swimming (when it was warm enough)...no one locked their doors, no one was afraid to walk after dark and a moose was the most dangerous thing you were likely to encounter on the streets at night.
St. John's, Newfoundland is by far, in my opinion, the coolest city on the planet..and I physically hurt at the thought that so many people will never see it. I miss it so.
Will me and my family live in America for another 6 years? I don't know...we always talk about moving to Newfoundland...but it's such a huge move, it won't happen overnight.
But I must admit that my time in America has been good...I have never for a moment regretted marrying my best friend...I'd live anywhere to be with him...and I've met some amazing people on my journeys around 'the states'.
I do, at times, stick out like a sore thumb, and I do listen to Irish music in my car while I drive around Tallahassee, and should my family ever leave America to try out life north of the border, I'm so thankful to have had the opportunity to be a foreigner here, In the US of A, with all of you.