15 Things I Learned From Moving Across An Ocean In My Thirties

Ten years ago, I picked up my stuffed suitcase, got on a plane and moved from London to Toronto.

Today, I have an unbridled devotion to this city, which feels absolutely like my home. I even got a tattoo of the CN Tower on my ankle — which I think is the closest one can come to actually marrying the city of Toronto.

In honour of my TEN YEAR CANADAVERSARY, here are 15 things I learned:

(1) It’s hard. Like, really, really hard

When I was moving, so many people told me, “You’re so brave!” and I would reply, “No I’m not! If I don’t like it, I’ll just come back!”. What I didn’t anticipate was that it would be really hard and I would still want to stay.

About six months in, once the honeymoon period (“Wow! I really did leave all my problems in London!!!!”) wore off, I suddenly realized, “Oh. THIS is what they were talking about….”

(2) The hardness last about a total of two years, tapering at the end

From talking to a lot of other people, it seems this length of time is mostly universal. Putting this out there in case you’re thinking of moving somewhere.

(3) The things that you find hard aren’t the ones you’d expect to

Yes, I missed my mum and my friends, and change can be difficult. But what was hardest were the little things. Like knowing where to buy an extension chord. In the UK, I’d just go to Argos. But Canada doesn’t have an Argos.

You can, of course, ask people to tell you. But sometimes it feels so exhausting to have to call someone about every. tiny. thing.

(4) The friends you miss aren’t the ones you’d expect to

I still spoke to my closies all the time. But the friends I missed the most were the ones who I wouldn’t see for a year, then immediately it would feel like we’d never been apart (like Tom).

Making new friends – even ones you get on really well with – is a very high-energy pursuit (because you want to find out EVERYTHING about each other). What I missed were friends I could just flop around in front of the TV with, and not have to talk about myself to.

(5) …Although, you never stop missing your mum

Living so far away from my ma feels the way people describe extreme grief: it’s not that the pain goes away, it’s that you just learn to live with it.

(6) Making new friends is like dating

When you don’t have any, it feels really hard. But once you break the seal, it can be a river that never stops flowing.

I actually wrote about the whole experience of this – and how it’s like networking – here: yesyesmarsha.com/newcity 

(7) When you’re starting again as a grown up, you get to be really choosy about your friends

You know that person who you went to school with and even though you don’t have a single thing in common, you still go for coffee or lunch every few months, then go home feeling crummy? Or the awkward person you worked with years ago, who always invites you out for a drink, and you have to find some excuse to say no?

None of them! They are no longer your problem! You get to pick your entire social circle, so it’s only filled with the most awesome people. This is the pay-off for all the hard work making new friends as a grown up takes.

(8) It’s much easier to change core habits

In London, I ate mostly processed food, mostly on the hoof while I was running from place to place, got callouses on my thumbs plus neck problems from how often I used my Blackberry (not even kidding), barely read the news, was out almost every night and stayed up wayyyyy too late. 

Here, I cook (mostly organic) food from scratch, bike everywhere (?? I never biked ANYWHERE before I moved here), have a flip phone that I keep switched off half the time, am an activist, barely ever drink booze and – well, I’m still not that good at getting to bed on time, but I manage it at least three nights a week.

It was easy to change my habits because I was changing everything.

Particular to my move:

(9) Canadians bloody love British accents and it’s SO AWESOME

Yes, I have to suffer every second person doing terrible impressions of me (“Moi noime is Mosheh! Oooiiiiiim Bri-ish! HAHAHAHAHHAHA”).

Yes, people constantly respond as if I’ve said things “British-ly” on purpose just for fun (even the way strangers say, “I love your accent!” is in a tone of “You’re such a card!!”, suggesting that they think you’ve put it on especially for them).

BUT:

• they think I’m funnier than I am (awesome)
• they think I’m smarter than I am (I’ll take that)
• it’s really nice to feel so frequently special.

Side note: they also think I’m more arrogant than I am, which only gets me into trouble when I make jokes like, “God EVERYONE in this bar is STARING at me, it’s SO hard being this attractive”. Which, admittedly, is a lot of the time. 

(10) North Americans are WAY more enthusiastic than people back home.

It’s terribly good for one’s self-esteem.

I actually only discovered this after I’d been normalised to it:

After a few years of living here, I was the keynote speaker at a conference in the UK. I walked on and, as is my wont, started cracking jokes as I was teaching. Silence. At best, small titters. “Oh god,” I thought. “I’m bombing so badly!”

Then I realised, – Oh, no. They’re just British.

Later on in the conference, I was sat in the audience. The person on stage made what I thought was a really good point. Naturally, I started clapping, loudly and enthusiastically. Only to realise (*slows down clap*) that NO ONE ELSE WAS. It’s just not the done thing.

Over here – certainly at the kinds of conferences I go to – everyone gets a standing O. The person speaking feels amazing, and I love it.

(11) On visits home, you have to stop trying to see all of your friends

At first, I tried to do it. It was like speed-dating them (but without even the promise of sex). It made my entire visit miserable as I rushed madly around, having the same conversation over and over and over again.

The answer seems to be to pick a couple of friends to see each visit, then let go of the guilt you feel from calling no one else.

(12) You must accept the fact that your regular friendship time with a lot of people has come to an end for now, and that’s ok.

There are people you worked with for years, whom you LOVE. People you dated and are still on great terms with. People who, when you lived there, you’d meet once a week and always have the best time.

But you don’t physically have time to see them and your closest friends and your family and do whatever it is you came home to do in the first place. If you happen to run into these people, it’s great. But your regular friendship is over for now, and you must let them go with love. Though, on this…

(13) If you want an easy life, don’t mention on social media that you are home

When you move to a different country, the supply of yourself in your home town dramatically drops – which means that your social stock rises sharply. People who, when you lived there, you could barely hold two minutes of conversation with at a party, will email you saying, “YOU’RE BACK!!! We must go for lunch!!!!!”.

When you’re home, either keep schtum, or brace yourself for a bunch of these messages.

(14) Once you hear yourself start to say “we” and “our” to refer to your adopted country, you experience a swell of pride 

We’re the country with the second biggest land mass in the world, but our population is about a third of that of the UK’s.

(15) Even though it is hard and it’s scary and you miss your mum and there’s so much effort in building new friendships and you have to learn New Argos…

You might end up having a life that feels perfectly you, in a way that your old one never did 

Don’t get me wrong – I loved my life when I was in London and Edinburgh. LOVED. But the way I live here feels like this whole new way of being that I never even knew existed. It’s like life before and after Google maps, or text messaging. You were perfectly ok when you didn’t know these existed. But now, can you imagine how bereft you’d be if they were taken away?

I’ve discovered that I’m super outdoorsy. I’ve learned how to cook. I’ve made my own communities. I’m more whole, somehow.

In spite of not having felt like an outsider in the UK, I’m more at home here than I ever felt in my home.

The hard work was worth it.

Yours,

xxProud Torontonian

Thanks so much for reading! If you know someone who has made a big move – or is thinking of it – it would be so lovely if you share this blog with them, using one of the round buttons below.

You RULE!

xx (Yes Yes) Marsha

PS want to know my best-ever client secret – and get even more advice, tips, plus stories that I won’t put on the internet? Come and join the Yes Yes Family – it’s free! Just pop your details in below:

Photo credits: All by me (Marsha)(well, or friends of mine I handed my camera to) except for the one of my onstage at True Stories Told Live, which is by the extraordinarily talented Connie Tsang

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