Essay - Monika

New world, new life, missing feelings. 

Before I came to Chicago, I was so excited that I will be able to start a

new life in the most popular country, However I know it was just excitement. It 

was always my dream to explore this beautiful country and have a chance to 

live here. I have been here almost six months and I know that it is not that 

easy to start new life far away from home. I remember the first day when I got

 information that I would be able to move to the USA. At that moment everything seemed so

easy. The feeling changed once I came and I spent here my first month. A part of my life 

was gone. I missed my house, my friends, my family and my life in Poland. Everything is

different in Chicago, the way how people talk with each other, relations

between family members, even my social life. 

The hardest thing about my new life is living without my family. I 

remember when my friends used to say, “life with host family is almost the 

same life with your second family”. That is not a truth at all. There are

obvious differences between relations with my family in Poland and my host

family. I can’t feel comfortable as I did with my family, I can’t go

and talk with my mum when something is wrong, and I can’t play with my

sister like I always did. Even in my host family house, when I’m watching

my host kids with their mum I see that the relationship between kids and

parents as I had when I was younger with my parent is different.  Every

single day many people are running after money, their business and career.

They are trying to find the best babysitters in the world to take care of

their kids because they don’t have time to do it by themselves. Parents

are buying everything what their kids want only, because they are trying to

use gifts as a reward for all this time, they are not able to spend with

family. It’s not like in Poland, where parents are trying to spend all

their free time with kids. I remember when I was younger, my parents did

everything what they could do, to spend their free time with me and my

sister. Add a transition finding myself in a new social life was so strange

for me. I felt like I need to start everything like a baby. Walking from

person to person on au pairs meetings, introducing myself, explaining what

I am doing here, why I am here and how long I will stay. It was so

confusing, but the same time when I was talking with people, I felt like

they were really interested in, what I was talking about. I felt like they

really pay attention and they really want to know something more about me.

It was the most surprising thing for me, because in Poland people really

don’t care what you are talking about especially when you mention, that

you come from another country. You trying to find yourself in new place and

you asking for help even on the street, because you lost your direction.

Polish people are closed in their own communities, and it’s so hard to

find a way to talk with them. That’s why when I came here and I realized

how nice and open minded people are, I was surprised in a very positive

way. I didn’t expect that, and I feel like this helped me a little bit

with finding myself in new culture. 

Finally my most important challenge was that, I left in Poland all my

friends. It was so hard to leave them and just move here, especially

because I treat my friends like part of my family. I was able to talk with

them about everything. We always spent free time together and we were

always making fun like nobody else. It is so hard to start new life in new

country without friends, especially if you can share with them everything

what is happening in your life. The hardest part, is to finding the middle

time in a time zone when you are able to talk with them and see their faces

only on computer screen if you used to spending time with them every single

day. As a newcomer, it has been hard to make new friendships with someone

who live here, who have his own friends here and with someone who is

talking in another language. It was hard to  find one better person on the

street and ask “ Hey would you like to be my friend?”. I think, that

this part of my life here was the most difficult part I could ever imagine.

Finding myself in the new world, with new people and new culture was 

so complicated, but at the same time I didn’t have any another option. I had

to move on and start everything from zero. Now, when I am thinking about my

first two months here and all this process I experienced, I think it was

not that bad. It just seemed to be hard and scarry, but everyone one day,

will have a similar situation in a life where there will be no option. When

you just have to move on, don’t give up and enjoy moments, your life gave you.