I have moved country three times this year, packed up everything and left. Toulouse in January, Ireland in July, and finally to New York in August, to the place which will be my home for at least another two years.
Moving country is no small thing. The researching, the planning, the saving, the packing, the double-checking, the worrying, the second-guessing, and eventually, the goodbyes: these all take an enormous amount of time, energy and courage.
When I left for Toulouse, I went to teach English with two friends. The job in the university I’d been offered didn’t start until September, but we wanted to go sooner, hoping to gather some experience teaching, as we had none.
Even before we left, we’d been told by a half a dozen or so schools that they weren’t recruiting, but we remained hopeful. After two weeks in hostels, we found a place of our own (not without incredible difficulty, I might add, thanks to French bureaucracy), but the jobs were nowhere to be seen.
I couldn’t count the afternoons we spent in internet cafes sending emails, printing CVs, looking for jobs, furniture, directions to schools. We spent hours on buses and trains, taking us out to the suburbs in search of English schools that had long since shut.
It didn't take me long to realise I'd have to accept work wherever I could get it. I had been working at a factory in my home town before this, so doing anything in the south of France seemed more appealing.
A normal day would see me leave the house by ten in the morning, and not usually return until evening. I would wander around the city, usually getting lost in the narrow, red-brick streets, trying to make sense of the street names, using what little French I knew to ask for directions, order food, ask if they were taking CVs. In my spare time, I would read and study French, try to figure out the city, and watch Six Feet Under on a tattered couch we found on the street.
I befriended a guy from Clontarf who owned an Irish bar, who gave me his bar contacts. After another few weeks of visiting certain bars three, often four times, I got work in an English-themed bar. There I worked for almost six months, doing my best trying to learn the language and meet the locals, make friends-all of the things you go abroad for.
It took six weeks from getting there to finding a job. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is, and it leaves a lot of time for self doubt. Some days were so bad I considered phoning home to look for the money to take the next flight home, but I fought off the urge and in no time at all, I was making a living, and had made a life for myself.
Before moving, I had applied for an MFA in Creative Writing in the US, which I’d hoped to get, but had practically forgotten about it by the time I’d gotten the job. Then, in late March, I got a phonecall from the university telling me I’d been offered a place and a scholarship. The scholarship wasn’t enough money to make it feasible to go, but after some pleading, they increased their offer.
This changed everything; the course was due to begin in September. The programme had long been a dream for me, and so after long talks with my parents, banks and countless emails to funding agencies, sacrifices were made, and I decided to take their offer.
I returned to Ireland for a month at the end of July, after meeting some people I’ll never forget over there, saw family, went out with friends, felt at home, barely got a chance to unpack, said goodbyes and set off for New York at the end of August.
I’ve been in New York for almost four months now. I spent the first two months living with a grand-aunt in Queens before moving into the city, closer to school. My course is tough, but it’s exactly what I want to be doing. I’ve managed to get an on-campus job, and, slowly, I’m beginning to feel like this is it, this is my life now.
This will be the first Christmas I haven't been in Ireland, and it's an odd feeling. I've been so busy working that it didn't really feel like Christmas to me, even though I spent the day with family in Queens. I don't have Facebook, so it's been hard keeping in touch with family and friends back home. I email the people I have kept in contact with regularly though, and it's as if nothing has changed. I find Facebook difficult to use when living abroad, it seems like a constant reminder of what you're missing out on, which is difficult for those living abroad. This also works the other way, too, for those looking at their friends off in Canada or Australia, where my brother is headed in a few months.
I fantasise about moving back and living with friends in Dublin, about doing what we’ve done for the past few years. But I know that’s a while away yet.
Tadhg Hoey is from Magheracloone, Co Monaghan. He is currently living in Harlem, New York, and studying for an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University.
