5 years ago, I wrote a blog called the ‘epilogue’ (Now ‘part 5’) which I thought was a good time to end this coming to America series. 5 years later, I can confirm that was only the halfway point. Today, I’ll pick up where I left off with 3 additional blogs that detail my time and learning over the last 5 years that culminates in me closing this series once again.
At the end of 2018, I was preparing to move back to England after finishing both my university degree and OPT visa (1-year work visa for students who graduate in the US). The big pull to move back was to itch a couple desires and get England out of my system as much as possible before inevitably moving back to the US. In a conversation with my Mum a few years prior, she had mentioned something about my dad that stuck with me, “Living far away from home, you’ll always have the challenge of not living close to family and friends and feeling disconnected”.
My Dad, now in his 50s, has lived longer outside Nigeria than he spent growing up there. Leaving at 17 years old for Italy, he went on to create a new life outside Nigeria. However, to this day, he remains very connected to the village and home in which he was raised. In a way, I’m following in his footsteps. Selfishly, I needed to move back to England as an adult to see what I’m missing out on, see what life could be like, and see whether living in the US for the rest of my life (most likely) is something that wouldn’t drive me crazy.
So, it’s January 2019, I’m back living at home in Nottingham. I quickly got a job as a marketing assistant on the outskirts of Leicester and started living the English life -- playing football on the weekends, going to the pub, and bothering Conor as much as possible (Read moving back in from that time). But it wasn’t long until I was on the move again, this time off to London to fill another desire of mine to live in the big smoke. My short time in London came with a lot of challenges as you can expect from moving to a new city on your own (read more here) and would also see me into the start of the pandemic.
I promise to keep my pandemic recap brief as who wants to relive that nonsense. With the pandemic came the work from home transition, then came the move back home transition, then came the why am I in England transition, then came the I’m moving back to America now transition.
Told ya I’d keep it brief. So, in the summer of 2020 I embarked on my first mission back to America, albeit via Croatia and Istanbul due to the travel bans, with the added secret mission of proposing to Alana on arrival. Thankfully, all went to plan and a few days later with all her friends and family in Alana’s hometown of Washington, NC I proposed. A couple weeks later we got married on the back deck at Alana’s college house and with that came the peace of mind that we’re now stuck together forever, and no government could keep us apart.
After using the full 90 days of my tourist visa, I headed back home to England hopeful that the pandemic would soon be over and that we’d be living together before you know it. Well, a year had passed, and we were somehow still in the middle of the bloody pandemic. So again, I packed my bags and flew back to North Carolina, this time without a stop in Croatia, thanks to that beautiful marriage license.
Looking back and trying to summarize 5 years of time is no easy feat I tell you. During the time I just described there were numerous other challenges and moments of joy in both England and America. Fortunately, my year in reviews capture my emotions better than I’m able to portray in this blog across that time. In Part 7, we begin to dive deeper into the green card process.