One Year in America

It completely passed me by until I looked at the calendar, but today marks one year since Tina and I first set foot back on American soil.

It was this time last year that we arrived at Newark Airport (and I was given a rough time by some jerk in an Immigrations Officer uniform.)

One year... It's amazing.

Well, what has this year brought us?

The most obvious new arrival is actually still in it's packaging - Baby 'M.' Tina's not finished baking our American baby until the end of the month.

But since we've arrived, other things have happened that confirm to me that life here in America is much better (for us, at least) than it could have been in England.

I've got a job - paying much more than I earned in England. Tina and I each have the 'dream' car we'd lusted after back in Blighty (a stick-shift Firebird for me and a manual Rav 4 for her.) We're not rich, but we earn enough to pay our bills and still have some left over at the end of the month. We even live in a bigger (rented) house, closer to the centre of the action.

On the other hand, it's not all rosy. We're living in a country on the brink of a recession. I haven't seen my parents, or France, for well over a year now. Our poor little kitty, Ava, got run over just weeks after she and Tina were reunited.

But paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson - 'shit happens.' You can't enjoy the highs unless you have the lows to compare them too.

Our life in America is very modest. I haven't made my millions. Tina's face isn't plastered in the papers. We just live a quiet, suburban existence in a misunderstood little state called New Jersey.

But while the economy, imminent baby-arrival and American job security make life a little more uncertain than we'd like, I wouldn't exchange the opportunities we enjoy here for all the security in the world.