I’m now in my fifth year living in Los Angeles, which means I have spent a fifth of my life listening to the California accent, looking the wrong way when I cross the road and saying words like trash can, mail, and sidewalk. In all honesty, I can’t believe that this much time has already passed by. It seems like only yesterday I was in my first few weeks of living here: wide-eyed at the six-lane roads, driving on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, with palm trees outlining the sky. It’s been a difficult, sometimes complicated journey but now I look back, everything was worth it, as I love where I am now.
Over the years I have gotten used to switching from “British me” to “American me.” I say different words and phrases at home compared to when I am at school or out in public. It took a while but I finally feel like I understand the culture that surrounds me. What is the Superbowl? Why is Thanksgiving celebrated? Can you wear white after Labor Day? I know all the answers to these questions now. I also know that when someone asks me “what’s up?” they aren’t looking for an answer and they won’t stand still to have a conversation with me.
I can’t lie however that I don’t get homesick even after all this time. Sometimes I have days where I want is to go to England and surround myself with everything that is “home.” I would love to put on the tele and watch You’ve Been Framed with a cup of tea to dip my digestive biscuit in. A luxury that I get once a year when I go back to visit friends and stay with family.
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When I live here, I am English but also now part American as I use the lingo, my accent has softened and I laugh at American humour. When I go to England, I am part American but English, the small-village girl has disappeared, my accent is not cut-glass like the others and the music I listen to is not widely liked.
I am not 100% English anymore, but neither am I 100% American. I am stuck in the middle. Metaphorically, I am stuck in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, in between both countries and cultures.
It’s a feeling that is hard to explain unless you have experienced it yourself by emigrating. Perhaps though if you have moved to another state for college you can understand it so some degree. You are in the same country so everything is relatively familiar and the same, but the culture, lingo, and people may seem so different.
I’m not saying I don’t love living here because I do. But it can be so difficult sometimes when it feels like you are not 100% of either country that you call home. The only thing you can really do is embrace the place where you are, submerging yourself in the culture and the people, whilst at the same time never forgetting where you came from and the roots that made you.
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