Sometimes I get anxious when I think about being stuck in England. Obviously, if I wanted to and could afford it, I am free to come and go as I please. But with the decision to study and practice social work came the commitment to a career and life based in the UK.
I have never wanted to stay here. As a child I wanted to work in IT in the American branch of IBM (I had fairly specific aspirations..) or move to Australia with my sister and our family friends. As I got older, I planned trips and sorted visas and collected stamps from many different places, thinking each time of whether this was where I wanted to move and build a life.
England was never on my list.
Living in Pennsylvania for a year, starting from knowing no one and nothing and leaving with a community and a whole other world, was the closest I got to leaving. And whilst I didn't become besotted with the idea of America, it did strengthen my resolve to move away, to discover new spaces and create new lives.
In our discussions of whether I would return to the East Coast, I told Connor that I wouldn't move back for him, that I'd need a purpose, a job I really cared about and wanted to do. That I needed a life I wanted more than a partner.
And I think I have found that. There's just one small catch; it's in the UK.
Training and qualifying in this country enables me to practice here and only here. If I want to be a social worker, at least for now, I am stuck.
It's been hard to accept this, particularly in these past dark and dreary months. It feels drab and grey and draining here, and I itch to get away. I look up flights to obscure cities in Europe, plan road trips across rural Canada, look up opportunities teaching abroad.
But I have this feeling about social work that I can't shake. I am excited. I am nervous about interviews because I really, really want this. I find myself researching and reading, wanting to learn how to navigate our social system and support people as they stumble through situations they never expected to find themselves in. I want to learn. More than I ever wanted to learn about English literature. This feels right. This feels like something I'd be good at and could make a difference in.
So I must stay.
And I think over and over again of this grey country I'm stuck in.
But then, after a low day swallowed by my bed, overwhelmed by interview prep, the sun comes out.
I stand by the window and feel warmth.
I walk outside and bask under the blue sky.
I trek through the countryside with my mother, laughing as the sun shines and we are pelted with hail and it is cold and sunny and beautiful.
I curl back up in bed when we get home, look at my applications again.
And I remember that this country isn't all that bad.
