I've been a foreigner for a year!
It's incredibly interesting to think of how my perception of being an immigrant has changed over the course of this year.
My wife (incidentally, my sister says that there should be a drinking game on this blog for whenever I say “my wife” or “my wife and I,” so get drinking!) warned me before I decided to move here, that it's hard to be an immigrant. I'll always be different to everyone else, and there will be things I want from home that I simply won't be able to have. She should have known, after all, at the time she was an immigrant in Britain.
Yes, being an immigrant is hard. Yes, I am obviously different to most people and yes, sometimes there are things I want from back home; Marmite and my family for example.
However, I'm also definitely having the time of my life. And what's the point of achieving anything if you don't struggle to get there?
My personal circumstances compared to my last year in Britain have indeed completely changed. It's shocking to think how much. From a sleepy rural town to the biggest metropolis there has ever been. From living a quasi bachelor lifestyle to being married and spending every day with my wife. From having one consistent job to working as a freelancer.
This year has changed me hugely.
In many ways, I consider these changes to be a huge improvement. True, as a freelancer I'm just starting out and have to juggle the fun writing based work with more physical labor intensive jobs, my best friends (apart from my wife of course) are 3000 miles away and I don't get most of the non Trump related jokes; but there is a strong feeling of progress being made.
After all, I dodged the Brexit, there's always something interesting going on here and I'm in the only city where being different is as important as using the subway. Yes, more so than London.
I hate to use the cliché that time goes by so quickly, so I'll say this instead. A year goes by so quickly because, really, it isn't very much time. It's just that a lot happens in this short time.
A year from now, I expect that I'll have started to forget what it was like to live in Britain. I don't plan to go back any time soon, so the memory will become fuzzy. I expect that one day when I do go back I'll be shocked by the way random people won't just strike up conversations, how the politics seems so much more polite and how much less crazy it is.
So, if this last year is anything to go by, feel free to keep changing me America. It's for our mutual benefit. Just, please, let me keep my accent.