Knowing changes

A change of habitat

Hi everybody, I'm Chelsea Dubois. If you're reading this, it's because I wanted to share with everyone the most important events of my life, which changed how my life and myself were during the last seven years.

This is not a very short story, in fact, it is kinda long, so I forgot some of the details, but from what I can still remember, the changes started before I was in eighth grade. Specifically when I was 13 years old, when I had to move out from Marseille, where I was born, to the city of Montreal, in Quebec, because of my new mom's packer job on "La Vie en Rose".

But before getting into this part of the story, you have to know what was the point of going to another country.

Before our arrival in Canada, our family had many, many financial problems. Our mom Maria had to work in two jobs because she could barely pay for the food and for the rent of our appartment. My father Malik had left us for another woman named "Samantha", back in the year 2016.

When he first met her at some point that I don't remember, she was supposedly a "friend of work". But throughout the many months Malik was with her, he was spending less time with us, until he eventually abandoned us.

My mom was, obviously, very sad about it. She was depressed for like two months 'cause of it, but then she decided to stop thinking about it and decided to work all day, for at least five years, to be able to move and live in a different country to find a better job. She said to me that she stopped to think that because "The past is something that can't be changed, but we don't have to let the past change our future".

It was very hard for all of us, and it became harder when the pandemic started. She had to find a job online, which was a very difficult task for everyone that lived during the Covid pandemic. Now thanks to her work, my mother, my sister Clara and I now live in better conditions in Montreal. She had to work that long because she hadn't even finished high school, so she didn't have any degree. Our dad was the one making the money thanks to his engineering degree.

When our mom finally had the money to take the flight to Canada, she was instantly searching for a job in Quebec City. It took her some time to find one, but she was able to find a job on "La Vie en Rose". During her search for the job, she was also searching for a flight to go to the country. And when she finally found a flight, we went to the Air France airport on the 8th of September 2021 and went to Toronto so we could go to Montreal later.

When we arrived at the International Toronto Pearson airport, my mom and my sister were very happy that we finally went to Canada to have a better life, but for me it was different. I had a lot of mixed feelings when we arrived. On one hand, I was satisfied that we were finally in Canada, but on the other hand, I was very worried about what my life was going to become.

One of the things I worried about was about what my social life was going to be. I've never been a very social person in my life, I didn't really make any friends during my life in France. The only people that I've been friends with are now too far away to be able to communicate, also I forgot to ask them their phone number or one of their social media accounts.

So I knew when I was at the airport that my social life was not going to be very easy. I was, at the airport, thinking about not being worried about the phase of my life that I was about to enter. My sister realized that I wasn't very happy at that moment, so she ask me :

-Why do you look like that ?

And I respond:

-Look like what ?

So then we start talking :

-You look like when you failed that math test in 6th grade.

-Why are you talking 'bout that ? I told you to stop bothering me with that.

-Because you look kinda stressed or sad I don't know. Is it because we're in a different country ? You're stressed 'cause of that ?

-No, I'm not even sad.

-Yes you are !

-No I'm not !

-YES YOU ARE !

-NO I'M NOT !

Then my mom says "Stop fighting !" and then she also start to talk :

-What happened ? Why are you both fighting?

-Chelsea is sad and she doesn't want to admit it.

So then I said "STOP!!!" and my mother asked me why I was sad, and then I explained to her that I was in that mood because I was worried that I would have even more difficulties socializing than the ones that I already had in my country. She says that I didn't have to be worried, it wasn't a big deal and that I would still find a way to make at least one friend here.

Later that night, my family and I took the flight we had from Toronto to Montreal. My mom was very satisfied and fully happy, we finally accomplished the goal that our mother had five years ago. We took our bagages quickly, because she wanted to finish all of the installation work that must be done when arriving in a totally different country, but we were all tired because we were awake for around 15 hours.

So we only took our things and went to a hotel for some days, so my mom could have the time to find an apartment. We didn't do anything very interesting in the hotel, we just spent some time watching our phones and talking to each other, but there are more interesting things that are going to happen later.