I moved back to BC for a sense of belonging.
I felt that this was it. This was what I was missing from my life in Calgary. Knowing all-too-well that I moved away for the purpose of finding myself and my financial prosperity in the making back in 2018.. in 2021, I (for some reason) had some dying need to return.
I spent some time in Kelowna on my way back. I took that time to let myself truly decide whether or not I was ready to return without the habitual “over-stimulating” social-life that I knew myself to be accustom to in BC. Kelowna was a true testament to that. It allowed me to realize that I genuinely have grown to love my isolation, my focus and determination. It allowed me to believe that I was ready to be back around my incredible humans that were so far dispersed among the coast.
What I forgot to account for was that the coast brought back an immense sense of feelings for those that I left behind purposefully.
I forgot to consider that when I’d left in 2018, (though I knew this) I “forgot” that I ran away from all of the loves and lives that I had lived.
Moving back to the Valley felt surreal. Not only because it had brought back the pain, the heartache and the torture that I’d endured in this area.. But it also rang to my relentless disbelief of the mere truth that life does go on without you.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve never been capable of understanding permanence. I’ve never allowed myself to love without a conditional ending. My closest of friends have always been those whom we share “I miss you” & “I can’t wait to see you again someday”s. Why? Because I have never allowed myself to build a sense of home. I have never chosen to do such a thing because to my understanding, that would create a further inconvenience when the day of moving again inevitably comes.
I know (I know) that I’ve said it before, but Calgary was supposed to become that sense of home. I recall my meeting with my GM of my previous restaurant prior to moving there asking what my goal was. I responded saying “To find a sense of permanence. To stay in once place. To find my home”.
And I find myself here today, asking why it was that I left such an incredible group of individuals behind to “rejoin” those who I thought were the ones that I belonged to.
Don’t get too ahead of yourself here. My humans around this entire country (continent..world for the fkn sake of it) are my people. I don’t need to live in that city to believe that. But something internally called me away from the land-locked home that I so desperately loved, and coerced me to return to the ocean… and hell if I say that I felt like it was a mistake, but damned if I don’t ask myself if it was.
I’m in a position where I’ve craved a sense of belonging for such a detrimental age in my life, that I genuinely have lost the understanding of what creates that feeling. I want to adhere to the standard “your love is your home” BS, but we all know that I don’t think that that may ever be my future. I want to believe that wherever I am, I am home… But we also know that that will only allow for me to move once again.
I feel as though my people that I believed were my people, are the people that I thought I’d left behind when I moved time and time again. But over the years, and now returning to those people, I realize that everyone had grown apart regardless, and now I feel as though my people in Calgary may grow apart as well. Hell, I’m realizing that this may just simply be the pure and utter chaos that life is. We love, we belong, we grow, we leave. All may be true. So then why did I leave?
And if I didn’t need to come back, then what’s stopping me from going back?
I can ask myself these questions over and over.
At the total brink of the truth, I know that my life in BC has always been adaptable and that may be the same in Calgary. I loved who I became in that damned city, and hell if I don’t coerce myself to be the same person here. I went from someone solely trying to survive, to someone that learnt to enjoy her life. Someone that gave the time to love others, to know others more than I was capable. I became a person that self-reflected, that cared for herself. I know that that’s the epitome of my true-self, I believe (possibly) that this current version of myself is heartbroken from losing my people, and the sense of belonging that I have always missed may quite literally belong in my sense of self, my ability to continuously push myself, to care for myself and continue doing the things that I have always loved doing.
Perhaps moving may have been a mistake, or perhaps it was the best thing that could have happened. The development and new forms of love that I’ve learnt, the people that I’ve met and had the pleasure to reconnect with over these last few months have brought a sense of gratitude into my life that I’ve yet to admittedly show thanks to.
What I’ve learnt over these last few months is that my sense of belonging has always been questioned internally. I have always placed an immense pressure on the people around me creating my feeling of home. But what I have realized is that my home is created inside, it is created with stability… Regardless of how boring that may feel.
It rings true in my heart when I say that no matter how you’ve entered my life, no matter how often you are part of that life going forward, that you are always my home. Even if my home is not where you are.
I know that I may never find that feeling because of the way that I choose to live, I know that I may forever have this question of “where is my home” without choosing somewhere to build my roots… but I know that I feel a sense of belonging of each individual I’ve loved in my own heart and to that, I think that my home may never be settled.
As much as I know you all wish I’d stop moving.
Neesh Media 