Starting Over
The hidden challenge of beginning again...
There is something strange about starting over. People often imagine it as a fresh beginning or an exciting new chapter. And sometimes it is. But what we talk about less is how disorienting it can feel.
When I first arrived in Canada, it felt like I had to learn everything again. How to get groceries. How the banking system worked. What a credit card was and how to use one. How to get a Social Insurance Number. Even my phone didn’t work at first.
I remember standing at bus stops, staring at route maps, trying to understand where I was supposed to go, how to get there, and whether I was even on the right bus. There were so many things I didn’t know that everyone else seemed to know.
Sometimes I was afraid to ask questions. What if people laughed? What if they thought I was incompetent? What if I asked something that seemed obvious to everyone else?
In many ways, it felt like being a child again, learning how the world works from the beginning. The difference was that this time, I was expected to already know. There was a constant sense of trying not to make mistakes, trying not to stand out, watching, observing, and adjusting.
Starting over is about temporarily losing the comfort of competence. Back home, I knew how things worked. I knew how to navigate daily life. I knew where I belonged. Suddenly, many of those certainties disappeared.
And I don’t think this experience is unique to immigration. Many people find themselves starting over at some point in their lives: a new country, a new career, a divorce, a loss, a health diagnosis, retirement, the end of a long relationship, or the beginning of a new one. Whenever life changes dramatically, we often find ourselves in unfamiliar territory, trying to understand rules we haven’t learned yet.
What makes starting over difficult is not simply the practical learning curve. It is the emotional experience of becoming a beginner again. Most of us enjoy feeling capable. We like knowing what we’re doing. Starting over strips away some of that certainty.
It places us in situations where we don’t know the answers, where we feel awkward, uncertain, and vulnerable. Yet there is also something profoundly human about this process.
Every meaningful period of growth requires us to become beginners again. To tolerate not knowing. To accept that competence comes after confusion, not before it.
Looking back, I realize that starting over taught me more than I understood at the time. It taught me humility. It taught me patience. It taught me empathy for anyone navigating an unfamiliar world. And perhaps most importantly, it taught me that feeling lost is not always a sign that something is wrong.
Sometimes it is simply a sign that you are learning how to find your way in a new landscape.
If you are in a season of starting over, perhaps the goal isn’t to immediately feel confident. Perhaps the goal is simply to keep learning, one question, one bus route, one unfamiliar step at a time.
With heart,
Bahar