BIG NEW PLACE

SAME OLD ME

Words by Kelsie Fitzgerald

Nothing really screams ‘New Beginnings’ quite like emigrating across the world. Growing up in Ireland, every generation experiences emigration, and if it’s not yourself it will be someone in the family or half your friend group that flies off from Dublin airport, only to be seen again down the local having pints on Christmas Eve. 

My first time truly noticing the scale of emigration was during secondary school. I have vague memories of school assemblies, being told by our teachers and principal that once we finished school, there would be no jobs and no prospects for us, that most of us would leave to different countries, Australia being the main destination at that time. Older siblings of classmates would emigrate, walking the school corridors you’d hear people announce another cousin was leaving for greener pastures elsewhere. As sixth year came to an end and the Leaving Cert stress was at its peak, so was the talk of emigration. It was suddenly becoming a reality, not just for someone we knew or someone else’s family, now it was our turn. 

I feel that compared to others my own age I was a little late to the emigration game. Instead of jetting off to Australia after secondary school, I fecked about doing different courses and working jobs trying to figure everything out. In fact, I never wanted to leave Ireland. I had grand notions of having a fabulous job and being able to own a house, but unfortunately I ate so many avocados the house plan became unattainable. However, there came a point in 2017/2018 when the thought of moving away seemed like the big life-altering change I needed to be happy; I had been finished college for a year and was mentally finished with my restaurant job. I really started considering what it was I wanted to do. I researched moving to Costa Rica to volunteer with a sloth sanctuary, considered moving to London just for the craic and then thought maybe even Dublin would be something new. Alas, nothing really came from these thoughts. There was no drive in me, so I just kept strolling along hoping for something to change.

In July 2017 I met my boyfriend James. He told me from the start that he was eventually moving to China. Now I’ll be honest, I thought this was all spoof. He’s hardly moving to China! That sounds mad altogether. Well colour me surprised when it’s February 2019 and he flies off to Beijing. I want to be very clear here when I say that I didn’t move to Beijing just for a boy, in fact I was planning to live in Vietnam for at least six months and then see if I wanted to go join him. I eventually ditched that idea when I realised the amount of paperwork that goes into emigration, especially moving to China. 

It has to be ingrained in us, the way in which humans hold onto this idea of new beginnings and fresh starts. We hear it every January, we hear it every Monday and on an even smaller scale we hear it every morning. It’s a fresh start. Don’t get me wrong, it’s something I latch onto especially after a bad spate of mental health or more commonly as a tool for my procrastination. Well if I’m aware of this, why did I think emigrating would be any different? Before I moved everyone said how much of a great opportunity this would be and how a fresh start would be great! I completely egged myself on, I would move to China and be a brand new Kelsie, free of the worries I had at home and in a place where nobody knew me, I thought Beijing would be my fresh beginning.

*Insert narrator voiceover here*: She thought wrong.

I won’t bore anyone here with great detail of my life in China, yet, but the newness soon wore off; what was once this gigantic city of new things and amazement became my daily life. I pass Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City most days on my way to work, it’s just my daily commute. Once the excitement passed and the mundane daily life took over, I slowly began to realise that I’m the exact same Kelsie just in a different country altogether. Okay, if you’re reading this you might think ‘well duh’, and in hindsight I agree.

Now this may sound negative but it’s not, by moving here there are some giant weights off my shoulders, like finding somewhere to live, having disposable income and discovering that teaching is probably the course I want my life to take (for now anyways). But there are new stresses now; not being able to hug my Mam, sing the wrong lyrics to songs with my Dad or listen to my brother explain D&D for the 100th time, and this was before COVID came along. I also stress about my future. What happens if I ever go home? How do I prepare for the future? How do I go back to college for a proper teaching degree?! 

To reel it back in a small bit, the point where things changed for me was when I was lucky enough to visit home in January 2020, before shit fully hit the fan. I’d gotten through my first Christmas away from home and was just miserable with homesickness. My mental health was essentially in the gutter. But here’s the thing, after a few days at home I was buzzing to come back to Beijing, get back to the little life I’d made, nothing at all really had changed at home, everybody was the same the world still ticks on even when I’m not there, but I think I needed to see that and experience that for myself. While I obviously have made it back to China, the old virus put a spanner in everything and added a whole new set of fears into the mix.

I read a lot of articles to prepare for emigration, how to deal with x, y, and z etc. And one of the things repeated again and again was that it takes at least one to two years for people to settle and grow in a new location, or at least to really see the growth you’ve made, and I have to say it’s true. While there has been no sudden fresh start for me and while I am still the same person, I can appreciate now that I am making a life here. I can actually speak a little Chinese now and I’m still learning. I’ve started to make close friends, I’ve found a career path I like, I’ve mastered chopsticks and I’ve even quit smoking!
I think it’s incredibly easy to get bogged down in the mindset of fresh starts and new beginnings, and when it doesn’t pan out it’s even easier to beat ourselves up over it, there is quite frankly enough shit in the world to get stressed about. I always say that there’s different trails for different snails so I won’t try and give you any advice but I hope that if you’ve read this far, you’ve enjoyed my reflective ramble. On this positive note, after much thought, I’ve decided it’s time I restart Animal Crossing with a brand-new fresh town. Maybe this time it’ll be perfect.

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