I just realized earlier that it had already been a year since I migrated here in Australia. It has only been a year but it already felt like ages when I left my job, packed my life in just a suitcase and decided to fly and live in another country where I am not a citizen of. It scared the hell out of me. It really did. But back then, I was more scared of the idea of not taking a chance, of missing the opportunity to see what I could accomplish here, than losing the comforts and the certainties I had back home. As the old adage goes, it is not the things that you did that you will regret later on in your life but those that you did not do. I just think and feel deep inside that I needed the transition back then to grow more as an individual.

While the previous year had not been a walk in the park, it was exactly what I had hoped for and more. A lot can happen in a year and looking back, a lot really did happen to me. I grew more in the past year than I have had in the three years prior that combined.

Contrary to what others believe, life here is still hard but hard in a different sense and incomparable to what we have back home. The good thing about living here is that we are being treated as equals and that I get exactly what I work for, but these alone do not make life easier here. There are still some challenges and more than you could ever imagine that migrants like myself need to surpass and live with daily. The grass is not greener on the other side and I learned that it never is per se. It is you who will still have to work hard to pull the weeds out, water and mow the lawn that would eventually make the grass greener on your current side.