I haven't been able to blog the past weeks as it had been difficult for me to access the internet, coupled with all the activities I needed to do before my impending move to Canada next week. I do hope to resume my weekly postings once we get settled there. So this is my last posting here in my homecountry before I take my flights.
I had thought that leaving my job and company of 12 years would have been the difficult part and the migrating part, the easier one. I got it wrong, as it was the other way around. I had a peaceful mind and strong resolve when I went through my last days at work, saying godbye to great friends, processing my retirement and walking like a ghost amidst familiar cubicles, meeting rooms and people I've worked with for years. I did feel like I was slowly fading from their memories, like a digital image slowing disappearing, as people I once worked passionately with are going about their busy lives at the office and passing me by. But aside from this few seconds of invisibility and nostalgia, it went better than I had expected.
Immigrating out of the country though turned out to be much like standing in line to ride the daunting roller coaster. I am a bowlful mixture of emotions. The ingredients of which are a cupful of excitement, table spoons (or maybe a half cup) of fear, a teaspoon of anxiety, a pinch of anticipation, and that whole palmsize lump of solid coal mixed in the middle of this swirling dough of emotions. At anytime I feel like laughing or crying or vomiting, I couldn't figure out which one my body really wants to do. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised as I well know this is what taking risks feels like...specially when to my mind, I have my whole comfortable life to loose. A friend had asked me why in the world am I leaving the country when I already have a great job, house, car. great family and a nice comfortable lifestyle? (Which are, as they pointed out unlike the prevailing reason of most immigrants namely lack of good opportunities, better paying jobs and better lifestyle.) Honestly, the question took me by surprised and further took more seconds of thought before I could reply. And the one answer that I know in my heart was true (but was probably the most unpractical one) was because my spirit needed the adventure - the adventure of discovering what life is like in another land, to take my hands off the helm and let the wind take me anywhere it pleases, to believe in destiny so much that my heart aches with anticipation while my mind cries out loudly that I am indeed insane.
I am reminded of that powerful scene in the movie - Elizabeth, the Golden Age, where the young queen Elizabeth asked the seafarer what it was like to see the New World. And the seafarer replied in his hypnotizing voice:
Can you imagine what it is like to cross an ocean?
For weeks, you see nothing but the horizon,
Perfect and empty;
You live in the grip of fear,
Fear of the storm; Fear of sickness on board;
Fear of the immensity.
So you must drive that fear down
Deep down in your belly;
Study your chance,
Watch your compass,
Pray for fair wind and hope...
Pure, naked, fragile Hope.
At first it's no more than a haze in the horizon,
So you watch, you watch..
And there's a smudge,
A shadow in the far water.
For a day, for another day,
The stain slowly spreads along the horizon, taking form
Until on the third day, you let yourself believe,
You dare to whisper the word...........land.
Land, Life, Resurrection!
A true adventure!
Coming out of the vast unknown,
Out of the immensity,
Into a new life.
That, (your majesty) is the New World.
What I am feeling right now is something that must have been felt in all it's different spectrum, by the generations of people who must have at one point in their lives, lifted their feet from that nice comfortable path of cobblestone and into the rugged edges of untamed rocks. People who have taken risks and went on adventures with nothing but Hope in their hearts. Even for just the experience of these emotions, I am immensely glad I took this journey.
I'll see you soon.
