so it's more than a year since i returned to the homeland. it's a bit of a bittersweet milestone; when i think of how i felt about coming back, all the mis-met expectations of the last 12 months, i do feel a little twinge of sad in my belly.
i was never meant to still be here, in armidale, by now. i was meant to have moved on to a bigger city; to have found a new favourite coffee shop and a new local where they knew my drink of choice. i was meant to have found a little group of trendy hipsters to befriend; i was meant to be taking over the world with a person by my side. i was meant to be moving to germany, learning the language pre-emptively, planning european road trips.
well i'll be damned if it didn't all fall to bits. it was those little things that made it ok to leave whistler, my life and my mountains and all the places that i loved (and still pine for). the person i was in whistler was mainly pretty kick-ass, and thinking back to my single days of before, i was pretty awesomely self-sufficient and satisfied by my own company.
i think it's true- at different times and places, we are different versions of ourselves. for me, my canadian adventure was emancipation. for so long, i attributed it to canada, but of course all along it was me. it's true that i'll never be quite as free as i felt in those 3 years, but i think at least now i can say, safely, that i know myself better. and perhaps it's ok not to be perpetuating quite so much damage to my liver any longer.
saying goodbye to canada was most heart-wrenching for the friends i had to leave. at the time, i felt bolstered up by love and a long-distance boyfriend, but more and more i realise it was my friends that got me through my stuff; the girls for the feelings n shit, the boys (and the girls) for the drinking and fun action adventure & activities. the hardest thing to do and the most precious thing i've realised i am capable of is to stay true to what i want and who i am. to put myself around the people who inspire me instead of those who still, even in the second part of their twenties, find it easier to be sarcastic, to shoot down those with dreams and goals, to feel no more than bitter in the face of other people's success and happiness. i've been that person, and she sucks. i'm not her anymore.
that's what hangs on from what whister gave me. the part that i miss is the family of whistler orphans, all snuggled together for pot luck dinners, birthdays and christmases, post-shred warmth and runny noses, all stoked on pow days and new boards and dropping things not previously dropped. we were all so happy, we were all so encouraging and full of heart and soul, breaths of mountain air and rosy cheeks from blood thumping through our veins.
i miss not having a commonality like that to share. i miss having some of my best friends living in the room next door (or downstairs). i continually wish that i'd spent more time with them, and ache desperately to see them all again - looking forwards, i'm being propelled along by the prospect of seeing them all again within the next 12 months; weddings, christmases, a move to europe... oh boy oh boy!! i wish it were right now.
there are little bits of my heart in all the places. whistler, vancouver, corvallis. sweden, norway, england, germany, prague. brisbane, sydney, melbourne, perth. all of them. big love from little armidale, right atcha.
xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment