The Past Ten Years

By Lin Lin

My life has been changed a lot since 2000. I graduated from my high school in 2000. I didn’t get any good offer for the university. At that time, my mum gave me two opinions to choose: go to college or go abroad. I didn’t even think about it. I told my mum I would love to go abroad. Since then my life has been changed.

In 2001, I packed up my stuff when I was ready to go to my new direction. I didn’t spend too much time to settle into my new life. I went to school, found a job, and met a lot of new friends. At the end of 2003, accidentally, I met my husband. I started to build a family. After we met each other’s parents, I was planning to have a baby. In 2006, lucky me, we had a baby girl. I started to learn what the responsibility means. I needed to look for a job and save some money for my daughter’s future. When I got a job as a clerk in the Chinese clinic, I didn’t have time to look after my baby girl. I had to let her grandparents take care of her. But I promised myself I would bring her back to me in four years.

I worked a year in the Chinese clinic. At that time, I began to feel my knowledge wasn’t good enough. I decided to go to school. I picked up a nursing course. That course was related to my last job. A year after I had done studying, I got a job offer from a nursing home. However, I knew I wanted to bring my baby girl back to me, and I didn’t want to go back to China. I should change my situation: to get PR (Permanent Resident) or citizen in Ireland.

Then my husband and I began to find how we can apply for PR or citizen. We applied but were not successful. People always say: if God closes a door, he opens a window. By chance, I saw a message from a web site. Depending on my skill and my work experience, I could immigrate to Canada. I was so surprised and so excited. But the bad condition is I needed to go to Canada first. After I worked two years, I could bring my family here. I told this information to my husband, and he stood by me to do this thing.

2010 is my second important milestone. I had to leave the country that I had been living in for 10 years and go to another strange country. But whatever, the choice is right or wrong. I could only do it now—just step on it. I packed up my stuff again, said good-bye to my families again. I crossed my fingers to myself. I would bring my daughter back to me as soon as possible. This is my story for my past 10 years.