“Letter for Allen Benjamin”, I hear a voice say, and so I join Thomas to collect a brown envelope with the unmistakeable markings of the Canadian government printed on the front. Suddenly apprehension hits. This could be my visa decision. I feel the packaging. My passport. Postman leaves as I hastily rip open the envelope to find a short, one page letter enclosed along with my Passport. “Your visa application has been approved, and your new document will be sent to you shortly”, it reads. Relief.
It had been six months since I made the decision to stay in Canada, so ever since then the prospect of being either unable to find sponsorship, or finding sponsorship but being refused a visa due to the current economic climate, loomed large. I’ve been very content with life out here, but always had the niggling doubt in the back of my mind that one day in the not-so-distant future that I’d have to hurriedly pack my bags and get a flight back to England. Now, a huge weight had been lifted.
Fast forward a few days and I had just cycled home from work. Thomas and our other friend Dave are sitting around in the living room. Sophie is at work, and so the other two are about to go bowling. Me? Well I was tired, and was planning on having a relaxing evening in. They leave, I stick the television on, but a few moments later the phone rings. It’s Thomas. “Come on down”, he says. There’s another letter waiting in our mailbox. A few minutes later I’m downstairs. We live on the eight floor, so the mailbox is a trek. I’d been checking the mailbox every day since getting my approval letter. Finally, it seems, my visa has arrived.
I am greeted with another brown, Government Issue envelope. Once again I tear it open. It is indeed my new visa. All I need to do now is staple it to my passport, and I’m set. But wait - the expiry date. It says July 2011. I was expecting only a year, but Canadian Immigration & Customs have given me two. I knew I had a two year Expedited Labour Market Opinion certificate stating that I was needed in this particular job, but I was expecting to have a one year visa, and have to reapply for a second on next year. Apparently not. I guess being English makes you entrusted.
The feeling I’ve had since that moment has been amazing. I’ve always had my doubts I’d be able to stay in the country, but now I have the piece of paper that allows me to live and work in the place that I love. Over the past weeks and months since I applied for the new visa I’ve been unable to make any plans more than a few weeks in advance, as I would never know if I was going to be around then. Now, this has all changed. Now I can get everything I’ve wanted to get in life arranged. And I know I can do this long into the future. Yes, I’ve been in Canada for just over 13 months now, and that has flown by, but another two years is a long time. Time to do so many things, and time to plan, plot and arrange life. Time to live.
It may seem like a small thing, but not being able to arrange to take a trip with friends, or save up for a new snowboard for the next season has been frustrating. Now I have a total feeling of release. I have no weight on my shoulders – something that I haven’t felt for quite a while. I have been extremely settled in Canada, but there had always been some feeling of uncertainty, or something holding me back. Now, that feeling has gone. I can now look forward to my future in Canada, the prospect of permanent emigration, building up my life here. I am completely at ease.
Next on the list of things to do is to head back to England. My parents had been waiting for my visa situation to be resolved before very kindly booking flights back to the UK, but now everything is arranged. My brother Tom’s wedding (see www.ride-earth.org.uk) is happening in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital in September, and so I will be making the epic voyage from Vancouver to Armenia via a couple of days in England. I can’t afford to take more than around 10 days off work, so I only have a short time in the UK, before I head over to see Tom for the first time in over two years, and meet Tenny my new sister-in-law, and her family. We have spoken on the phone, and over the internet, but have never had the chance to meet. Now, I am relishing it. The chance to visit a new country – one that I knew very little about until Tom’s chance meeting with Tenny in Yerevan one cold evening in early 2008, is going to hold a lot of intrigue for me. It will also be the first time my parents, my brother, and I have all been together since July 2007, when we sat in a square a few short metres from Mozart’s house in Salzburg, Austria, and ate lunch together. At that time, Tom had just begun his voyage on bicycle, and had no idea what his future held. Me? I was driving around Central Europe for a few weeks with my University friend Luke, and had no other plans formulated, having finished my degree a few short weeks earlier. Now, I’m living in Canada, and Tom is getting married in Armenia. Who’d have thought it? Life is Technicolor. I love it.
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