My life had already changed forever and no turning back. Now ten months after giving birth to my first child, my beautiful son Ed, it was about to change again with such a force of utter destruction that had I know what was ahead I would have fallen before I was out of the gates. I was ready to emigrate to the United States. Something I had planned since I was roughly thirteen years old. On emigration day, I was 35.
Three months earlier I had moved out of my beautifully appointed, baby ready home in SE East London that I had fallen so totally in love with the day I viewed it. I had had to persuade my then fiance that it was the perfect home for us. It's ironic now that he still owns it and I was the one who gave it up.
It had taken me weeks of going back and forth, leaving my son with my parents at their house where Ed and I were staying, to pack up my share of the 12 month old wedding gifts along with the rest of what amounted to my life so far. I had taken my baby, who never slept and I had left my marriage. My heart broke in a way I cannot describe effectively, even now with six years of distance and perspective.
Those three months of packing, looking at all the photos, keep sakes, letters and trinkets collected during our 5 years together, then separating out the furniture, bedding, plates, pictures...my God how trivial but ridiculously painful. It was a strange kind of catharsis and at the same time a torture so profound that I acquiesced to taking Prozac for a few months. I would never want to take it again but it helped and I did need help. I was determined that I never would cry or feel sad around my new baby and I didn't. I'm an actress after all, well trained and I know I didn't let the all consuming pain I felt out but it was inside me...waiting to come out some other day.
Today, August 14th 2006 I was headed to Heathrow with suitcases containing all I could carry with me into my new life, that dream come true life, in America!
This is where my story begins...and as I begin...you will be listening to the voice that I used back then. You will discover as my story unfolds, that I don't have that same voice today. Today's voice will try to butt in. You will hear her, (in the brackets).
This is the email I sent my relatives and friends back in the UK, describing my journey to and arrival in America. Written Aug 18th, 2006. My 1st Letter From Boston.
Dear friends,
As most of you know, Ed, who was already packed and booked on the flight to Boston with his grandfather and I, was rushed into the hospital with an awful stomach problem that had his temperature dangerously high and resulted in him being put on a drip etc. So, we were unable to emigrate to the USA on the day initially planned. However the main thing is that Ed was OK. Thankfully my Green Card date was a further two weeks away so I could still enter the US for the first time as a resident before the deadline!
We did have to cancel and re book everything and attempt to claim back some of the losses which was a bit of a hassle but things could have been a lot worse.
We decided to try to fly again on Aug 10th but then thought that perhaps Ed would need a few more days to recuperate. Thank God we didn't book the 10th. That was the day that every airport in the UK ground to a halt due to International terror threats.
So having already packed absolutely everything we owned we now had to re-pack it all in order to satisfy the critical level security measures. NO hand luggage. Brilliant!!!
By now we were beginning to feel a little daunted but we were not put off. We repack and make do with next to nothing in the way of belongings in hand luggage. We end up with eleven, yes eleven pieces of luggage to check in.
The fateful day arrives, August 14th. We set off in a hire car or should I say wagon, full. We give
ourselves tons of time to do the journey to the airport. However we hit two major accidents on the M4
which sets us back over two hours and it starts look like we are actually not going to make the check in time.
I call the car hire company for some reason and ask if they can help us??? I become so hysterical on the
phone that the nice man hangs up on me. Perhaps he thought it was a hoax call.
We finally get to the right place in the airport with all our bags and Ed in his stroller and then realize
that the two of us (my father and I) cannot actually move. AT ALL. We have two trolleys piled high with the eleven bags and Ed in his stroller and we don't have enough limbs between us to physically move it all. I tried mind control but it didn't work.
So on a day when the airport and it's staff are at maximum stretch, we require one of their staff to push
one of our trolleys.
The airport is like a refugee camp. Thousands of people are sat on the floor in an open air car park
with all their belongings. They look dispossessed. We do too. But the over stretched staff are bringing around free sandwiches and water. I can't face eating so I decline the free food. Besides I'm sure there'll be plenty more where that came from. There isn't.
We take it in turns to que for ten full bladdered minutes each to go to the toilet. Not bad considering. And there was even some loo roll left.
Dad is queuing to pee when they tell us refugees that some of us can actually proceed into the terminal
building. I signal across to Dad that he should stay in the toilet que and have his pee. Who knows when
we'll get another chance.
By the time we find another nice man to help us push all our stuff to the check in gate we are last but one in line. Everyone is very friendly though considering. I imagine this show of spirit must have been what it was like after the War. Lots of people even think we look very funny, with all our bags and little Ed in his stroller trying to maneuver through the endless snaking lines.
It's hours later and we're still queuing and the flight is about to take off and we haven't even checked in. Oh my God I feel I might be getting hysterical again. I remember that the last outburst didn't get me anywhere and think better of it. So then dad has to go que somewhere else because he doesn't have a seat allocated. He takes Ed with him and I'm left to hump eleven oversized, maximum weight bags onto the belt. I actually manage this somehow!? Could this be the Prozac kicking in maybe?
Then we run hell for leather, like fools to the gate. But it's OK because we get to que here as well. The flight is delayed. At least now we are free of all the bags. Dad has been given an upgrade to business class but this means he can't sit with me and Ed. A difficult choice but he decides to ask someone to swap with him. A nice french lady says she doesn't mind swapping her cattle class seat for an upgrade, but she doesn't say thank you, not even a merci.
We sit on the tarmac for an hour while the FBI check the passenger list, apparently! The flight itself isn't too bad considering. Ed gets a little bassinet and actually sleeps in it for a bit!!
Dad and I do that thing where your head lolls forward and your mouth opens and you try to imagine you're in your bed kind of thing. The first meal arrives and not before time. We haven't eaten or drunk a thing for over six hours. It's not great but we do our best. Then more strange pretend sleeping, in turns, then another meal. Thank God! I AM STARVING!
Ed is up and about now though and he is running perilously up and down the isle at high speed. I put my food to one side while I see to him and when I turn around they've bloody taken it. My food I mean. I can't believe it. I ask if I can have it back but all of a sudden it's too late. We are beginning the decent to land. Once we touch down I ask the steward if it would be okay if I went to the toilet to be sick. He agrees even though the seat belt signs are still on.
I can't even be sick my stomach is so empty. So I make that nice retching noise and do the being sick
actions...head down the loo, you know the kind of thing. I emerge feeling a lot better surprisingly but everyone has heard me and look both disgusted and sorry for me at the same time.
Immigration goes like a dream. No problems. I'm IN. I'm a US RESIDENT! So is Ed!
We wait for our eleven bags to arrive on the belt at Boston Logan. We wait and wait and I already know what's going to happen so strongly that when it does happen I am not even fazed (possibly the Prozac at work again here too). Ask my father. He was fazed. I wasn't.
One bag finally appears. "Phew, here they come"" says dad. I don't. Someone comes and gives me Ed's car seat and wheels and his travel cot and apologizes because these are the very last items to be taken off the plane. "I had eleven bags" I say, quite calmly. "Oh" she says. We go to BA's help (!) desk and describe all the bags in detail and they say they will probably turn up at some point. We are the very last people to leave the airport. We have one bag which contains only my winter clothes, boots, coats, woolens. Nothing of any use what so ever in August in Massachusetts.
I HAD packed food for us for when we arrived and were starving. Enough food for Ed's first three days and enough of his milk to last three weeks. He now only has the clothes he has been wearing and two spare nappies. Dad and I have NOTHING.
NO, underwear, clothes, shoes, toothbrushes, cosmetics, razors, not a hair brush or a tissue or anything.....
Ed has three empty bottles which we fed him during the journey but nothing else, at all. I can't wash him, or change him or feed him...it's like a nightmare. (It would seem I might have finally hit rock bottom. It had been a tough time but this must surely be it. (I was wrong)).
Suffice it to say, we survived and my American dream truly has begun!
The family who are renting us the apartment have been wonderful. Thank Heaven for them. They fed us and their children gave Ed some toys. So kind!
Our bags did come after three days. It wasn't easy but we were very thankful that we got them in the end.
We hope you are all well and enjoyed hearing our news. Since the dust has settled on all the drama, we have been slowly exploring our new surroundings. Braintree, MA is very pretty and our accommodation is great. People are extremely friendly and welcoming. (except for the bitch who pointed at Ed in Shaws and called out “My God, that poor baby, he's only wearing a diaper. He only HAD a diaper. That's why I was in Shaws!).
We are looking forward to having the rest of the clan (really just my mother) join us here in the coming week.
Please keep in touch, we miss you. (and please do bear in mind that I am currently taking Prozac. Did I mention that)?
Much love to you all!
Anna
What I hadn't told the folks back home was that my marriage was in pieces on the floor and once night fell I too was in pieces on the floor. My husband would soon be following me to America to activate his Green Card, gained through his marriage to me but he would be living separately from us. I thought it had already been hard, I hoped like the fool I had become that we might find some way back together, that he might love us too much to really let us go, but it was about to get so much harder. In hindsight, the hard part hadn't even begun...
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