I hope these posts about some of my more personal experiences resonate with you—I realize they are somewhat removed from what I commonly write about. If you have paid for a subscription for this newsletter and feel you are not getting what you signed up for, please contact me. I don’t want anyone to feel short-changed.
Hæ!
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my failed attempt to move back to Iceland, and how after a few months I wound up going back to Canada—the place I had lived since childhood, and where in spite of everything that had happened I had something concrete to hold onto, in contrast to the illusions I’d held about Iceland.
I landed in Toronto just days before New Year’s Eve 1984 and set about finding a place to live. What ensued were a chaotic three years with a whole lot of dead ends—yet also many lessons learned.
Canada held a lot of painful associations for me, and the proximity to my mother was soul-crushing. As much as I appreciate Canada, it was not a good place for me. Too many bad memories; too much toxicity. I longed to leave, but didn’t know where to go. Not Iceland: the time there, during which my illusions had imploded one by one, had been very painful, and I did not wish to try again, ever. I felt adrift, without a home, and very, very lost.
A high school friend with whom I was in touch had travelled to the UK and done a certificate course in teaching English as a foreign language. She had then moved to Finland and seemed to be living her best life. I held a romantic notion of living Europe as opposed to North America, and my friend assured me that there were plenty of opportunities for English teachers there. A four-week course in TEFL seemed manageable in my compromised mental state, so I made plans to travel to England to earn the certificate. I would then let the wind take me to … wherever.
It was the right move. The moment I arrived in lovely Broadstairs, on the southeast coast of England, where the TEFL course was taught, I felt at peace. Also, I loved teaching English. I completed the course with top marks and was immediately offered a job at a nearby school. I stayed for the summer, and it was wonderful—I loved the school where I worked, the people I taught, the proximity to the sea, the easy life in a small English town.
But at the end of the summer the work dried up, as TEFL work generally does in the UK. It was time to move on. I went to Spain, which didn’t feel right, then back to the UK, where I was offered a temporary four-week gig at the same language school, since one of their year-round teachers had become unavailable. There I met a German guy, we had a whirlwind romance, and I moved to Germany to be with him.
It didn’t last, but I decided to stay in Germany anyway, got a job at the Berlitz language school, started casually seeing a co-worker, became pregnant. That relationship was disastrous, he returned to the US, and I was left in Germany, a single mother with a residence/work permit conditional on me working as a teacher at Berlitz. The work there was almost exclusively in the evenings and on the weekends, and having no support system and no one to help look after my child, I wound up on welfare.
By this time Canada had closed its doors to me—I had always held immigrant status because I did not want to give up my Icelandic citizenship1, and this meant that I could not stay away longer than six months—which I had done. The only way I could return was if someone sponsored me back into the country.
Determined to get my life on track now that I had a child, I contacted my mother, with whom I had resumed contact. (I had caved to the “… but she’s your mother!” rhetoric I was hearing from everyone, and had convinced myself that it had not been that bad—oh the compulsion to minimize and deny when it is necessary to our survival.) When I first became pregnant she had offered to help me in whatever way she could—and I fell for it, believing she was sincere.
I had a vision of returning to school and getting a degree in journalism, but I knew I would not be able to do that in Germany, where I had no support system and only casual friends, none of whom had children. Iceland, after my previous traumatic experience, was out of the question. Canada seemed once again to beckon, as it was truly the only place I could call “home”. I had lived there for the longest stretch of time in my life, and it was where I had been educated—up to a point—and socialized.
So I reached out to my mother and shared with her how I proposed to fix my life. I placed my trust in her, and asked her for help. She replied in a letter comprising a three-page diatribe about my character and reasons why she would not help me. “Do you feel that you have something to contribute to Canadian society?” she wrote. “If so, and you are right, you might not need a sponsor. You can apply on your own merits.” She knew very well, of course, that I did not have any of the skills necessary to be accepted. I had dropped out of university twice due to mental health issues—issues that naturally were nothing to do with her. I had simply—inexplicably—turned out crazy.
In closing, she gave me this unsolicited advice: “Go to Iceland. Work on overcoming your two deadly sins, pride and arrogance. You might have to eat humble pie, but that won’t kill you. Until Aldís is old enough to stand on her own two feet you will have to come second in your own life.” - Yup. This from the woman who conveniently discarded me when it was no longer advantageous to have me around.
So much for her “help”.
I did not take her advice to return to Iceland. Not for another two years. And when I did, it was definitely not in response to her stellar counselling. Something else happened that made it the right move to make. More on that next time.
Your support means the world to me, since it allows me to keep writing. Here are some ways you can help.
📩 share this post
🙋♀️ subscribe to this newsletter
📚 buy one of my books
✍️ write a review of one of my books on Amazon or elsewhere
📣 tell someone about my work
💬 Leave a comment
☕ buy me a coffee by clicking here
Thank you! 🙏
At the time, Iceland would not allow dual citizenship, so I was forced to choose between Canadian citizenship and Icelandic, and I could never bring myself to forfeit my Icelandic identity. So this meant I had to forfeit the place where I grew up, that I knew better than any other. Today the law has changed—Iceland now permits dual citizenship.
Your story is very interesting; enjoyable to read! Thank you for posting.
Sheesh. Being blocked after you pulled yourself together was brutal. But you knew that.
When you come from an abusive family, the best thing one can do is to cut them off. That is terrifying and difficult, but better that living in that filth.