I thought many times about this
post, still unwritten yet already completed in my mind, in my dreams.
A post where to announce with pride:
“I made it, mission accomplished”.
That’s the way I had always thought
about the moment I would find a job: a stroke of luck, a winning resume,
something that all in a sudden turns upside down my situation and opens a world
of possibilities.
Getting a job turned out to be
something quite different. I finally got hired in the company I was having an
internship at, just in time (as I signed the contract at the beginning of May
when at the end of April the company where I had a part-time job closed down).
It didn’t happen by chance, or at
least not only by that (taking out the resume I had sent them in August before
starting the internship). It’s been a fight, as everything in Canada appears to
be for a newcomer: a fight to show what you are, your worth, your commitment,
the fact you can be a winning bet for the employer, working hard and sometimes
staying up ’till late, because your will to succeed is bigger than this
country.
I still remember that post full of disappointment and anger towards this problematic job market. I used to
think I would have broken that wall with a pickaxe, when it’s been rather
through the patience of the water that drop by drop hollowed out the stone.
Canada is not a lottery, but a
difficult country that, no matter your story, your experiences or the
challenges you faced before, constantly asks you to start from scratch.
And most of times Canada expects
something from you: Canadian experience and studies. It is like Apple: a closed
and self-referential system compatible only with itself, and the newcomer has
constantly a wrong plug.
You may not like it, and actually I
don’t, but you can’t cry: you know already your way for the airport if you are
not willing to accept the rules of the game you chose to play.
Won the battle for a permanent job
now it comes the battle with immigration. Working Visa Extension, Labour Market
Opinion, minimum wage that has to match government criteria, forms to be filled
in, immigration consultants to pay for help: I already know Canada is seeking
its revenge and will try to play some trick to kick me out. Nevertheless that’s
the tough and (for most of the immigrants) the only path to be walked through.
I am aware that, with this damn
crisis in progress, Canada is simply trying to keep out as many people as
possible, and that is reasonable, as it is reasonable the fact I don’t want to
get back to Italy now, since nowadays associating the words economy and Italy
can only make you weep.
In other words it is a clash of two
reasons, where I will have to demonstrate that Canada needs me more than I need
it. This once again will take time, like other drops hollowing out another
stone.
Being the things like that it is
quite inevitable that sometimes the weight of the stress you feel turn your
feelings into a black hole of discouragement, with a question you don’t really
wanna answer: “Is it really worth?”. A worth that’s not measured in dollars,
but in desire to stay in Canada vs. fear to get back home to find no future.
Does it really make sense to keep trying to do better, far from home, far from
my family, involved in a challenge I still don’t know if it can be won and even
if it is right for me?
It is up to me to find an answer, as
talking to other people has just made me aware my doubts and my fears are
theirs as well.
The holidays I’ve booked already
hopefully will blow away some of these clouds from me.
In a week time from now I will be on
my flight to cross the Ocean and get
back home for 20 days about. After over 16 months in a row in Vancouver, I am
craving this break as much as I would need oxygen after having been too much
underwater.
I’ve never been so far away and for
so long from home that I cannot even try to figure out what my feelings could
be. I just know I need to go, and that’s it for the moment.
That break will hopefully prove
useful to get quickly pissed off for Italy, blaming muggy weather, mosquitos,
trash TV, inefficient politics, small-town mentality and many other things.
20 days maybe not enough to find the
answers I need and solve my contradictions, but probably good to wish to get
back to this city to appreciate other and lighter contradictions, such as
spotting a girl in her late 20’s busy with needlecraft on board the Skytrain,
or bonzes dressed with their traditional orange tunic holding the latest model
of a smartphone.
A 20 days break to get ready to new
challenges.
