“Mia, we are moving to Texas next month.”
Those were my father’s exact words. He had gotten a promotion to a director position in an oil company’s main office in Houston, Texas. At first, he declined the offer three times before his superiors urged him to take the promotion since “denying an offer three times is disrespectful to the board of directors.” So in a flash of Styrofoam and moving trucks, all our stuff was gone. Our last night in Dubai was spent at my childhood friend’s home. Frankly, I was excited. I had never truly moved countries before. I did move from India (my home country) to Dubai when I was 6 months old, but obviously I don’t remember that. So I was sort of excited! But the minute the plane landed, it hit me — I was never going to see my relatives and childhood friends again. What made it worse was my bad habit of comparing Katy to Dubai. “OMG the malls of Katy are nothing compared to Dubai malls.” This simply made me more depressed. This went on for months. It was only years later that I decided to make a change.
“Mia, comparing doesn’t change anything, it’s not going to help you.”
My mom’s words definitely changed the way I thought about this whole situation. Every time I thought of Dubai, I would mentally make a note to not compare it with Katy. It definitely took time to call Katy my home, but now I don’t see it any other way. Another thing that helped me settle in was my best-friend/roommate. We met on my first day of school and we have been friends ever since. Getting a close friend, who coincidentally had just moved from Dubai, helped because I could talk to her about moving. She had gone through the same thing as I had, so we helped each other get through that initial stage of homesickness. Every time either one of us talked about how much we miss Dubai, we would immediately stop it and make sure it didn’t go any further! I stepped out of my comfort zone and my life has never been the same. I made friends and pushed past my nervousness and that definitely made a difference.