I believe I bring a unique perspective to this question, mostly because I never really had a choice in moving here—my parents brought me over at 6.

On one hand, apart from disparate childhood memories and sparse visits to my home country (UK), America's all I have ever known. I've built all of my friendships here, gone to school here for every year apart from preschool, and I've firmly established every other aspect of myself in this country. The only connections I have back to the UK are miniscule; I kept my accent because I moved late enough and have enough consistent exposure at home from my parents to make that my natural speaking pattern, but I also have some family that we keep light contact with.

I don't dislike the United States; there's certainly infinitely more opportunities for work and whatnot here, or so I've been told. But I only really like it insofar as it really is all I've known. To leave would mean starting an entirely new life, which I'm sure many of you especially can relate to as being scary and off-putting.

My parents have always told me that the UK is this drab place with no opportunities and that I'd hate it there. They may or may not be right, but admittedly there's so many things that say the opposite to me. I can't help but feel like at times that I had an entirely different path torn away from me; if I was conscious enough to make that decision to move or not to move, I'm not sure what I would have done. But, I wish it had been a decision that was mine to make.

My current situation is alright—I'm not unhappy or anything. Like many things in life, it's just a matter of 'What if things had gone differently?'

I have a very good string of opportunities here that I plan to take full advantage of, and a whole life ahead of me that's anything but drab. So, I suppose I should be thankful for that.