| At some point in our lives, everybody experiences stress! Some people experience it more often than others!Topics about handling stress have been the most popular during this pandemic. As immigrants, are we handling stress easier than other people, or do we have more stressors to worry about? A short series of episodes that talk about the current situation with COVID-19 and how it may (or will) impact our lives in Canada, more specifically for immigrants, was kicked off shortly at the start of the crisis. In the first podcast, I was invited by “Immigrants of Toronto” to talk along with other immigrants when the pandemic hit Canada. Here is the recording:  https://www.immigrantsoftoronto.com/covid-19-how-is-everybody-doing/ During my seventeen years in Canada, I was often asked: – How I decided to leave my country and move here; I was asked if: – I was scared to come in a country I never experienced before; I was asked if it was easy or complicated…and many other questions around the same idea! I have never been asked: what is your main fear as an immigrant? I have to tell you something! Because I am a crazy social bee, to give myself free time, my phone automatically turns on silent between 10PM to 7AM (local time). They are six numbers that could call anytime: my husband, my oldest son, my youngest son, my parents, my mother-in-law and my sister’s phone number. You will never want to experience the ring of any of those numbers in the middle of the night or early mornings. Except for my sister, who used to call me around 2AM until I tried to convince her to remember our time zone, but regardless, you never want to experience the ring of the phone during this time. And here’s why! These numbers never call me at this time to ask me how I’m feeling or to ask me for something in particular. These numbers, if they call, put me in a stress that is hard to understand or process if someone from your family is not far away from you! When I say far, let’s say farther than 12 hours of flying! And yes, as immigrants, we are scared the most! We are scared that if the phone rings, we are unable to help, we are sometimes unable to jump in a car or a train and see the loved ones in a few hours, or even a day. We have many barriers that stop us from doing that. And now, we have a new fear. It’s called COVID19. A few days after the lockdown, a close friend of mine wrote on social media, on her timeline: “… When I landed at the end of the world (how my grandma use to say) the first thing that came through my mind was: Dear God, where have I landed? All I hoped for was to be able to go home whenever I wanted. The only thing I am asking you for, God, is to not be in a situation where I have to go and I can’t!” I read her post, and I started wondering… As immigrants, we all have the same fear, and the same request to our God (or whatever you believe in): to be able to go and see our relatives, maybe for the last time, whenever we want. Since the pandemic started, I experience nightmares more often, because every night I think about my family and I am praying that everything will be ok with them. I call my parents more often than I used to do, and I try to stay more positive… Because if something will happen, I am locked between two worlds…my world and their world! If something will happen and I have to go, I might be unable because the only option I have is to fly. I have to go and stay 14 days in quarantine before I will be able to see them…if something happened, I might not have to go…because it may be too late! THE END! PS. For this week, I will ask you to go out, during a nice night, and look at the sky. Find a night when the sky is full of bright stars, and lose yourself in the infinite depths of space. They are far away from where you are, but sometimes they act like a messenger (a falling star in my tradition is telling us that someone we know has died, but maybe in your tradition it means something positive).  Now you need a pen and a paper. 1. Draw three stars, different sizes. 2. Draw a comet’s tail on one (and ONLY one) of your star 1. Using ‘Contact Me” send me a picture with your drawings and I will send you the interpretation of your drawing. |
