Travel
Sorry Mum, Sorry Dad. I Am Going Home.
Immigration as an awkward teenager is a fun experience. I was 17, living in South Africa. I had my best friends; I was as happy as I could be with my lack of freedoms surrounded by my rather traditional family. South Africa is a strange place to live. A tricky place to be, corruption, poverty, danger, high stats of rape and violence against women. My mum had had enough and decided it was time to get us out. Bless my mother, it had been a conversation on the table for years. “We are moving to America” when I was 12. “We are moving to Dubai” when I was 14. And finally “We are moving to New Zealand; I got a job and our visas have been approved” at 16. Oh my mother had done it (much to my father’s disapproval).
My mother and sibling went first, I would join them at the end of the school year. My father and the dogs would join us six months later. It was rough, my family however difficult and pesty they may be, strained against the separation. I arrived in New Zealand shortly after my 17th birthday. In December just before Christmas. Excited and nervous and a little bit scared and also maybe a little frustrated that my life is no longer my life. A clusterfuck of thoughts rambling through me, teenage angst throbbing. God you can feel it. Teenage angst, what a visible experience.
I started my second last year of school, wishing I could sink away. A little too uncomfortable with all the new people. I was…
