A lot has happened over a period of a few months. I've been counting down days, much to the annoyance of my friends no doubt, until I moved across two provinces. Small town girl, moving to Canada's biggest city. People move all the time. It's a part of life, right?
I anticipated this move being an important new chapter for me, and as I write this, I've lived in the Big Smoke for less than 26 hours. I still expect that I'm going to be continually blessed and blown away by the experiences and growth I will encounter. I am also very aware of the emotions that accompany transitions, and am being gentle with myself while I work them all out.
My move happened in four legs, the longest of which was over the weekend with friends. There was a moment where a melt-down moment was scarcely dodged, and my poor host didn't know what to do when her offer to hug me was met with me shaking my head no. Heck, that surprised even me.
It was just in the moments before that I was contemplating life and death. More figuratively than literally. I thought of the pruning of a tree, and how vital it is to cut things away, effectively killing parts of it, in order for it to have the fullest, most beautiful life. Perhaps it was in my own feelings of loss, that caused me to have a roller coaster of simultaneous emotion.
Loss is not a bad thing always. It's simply 'a thing.' To make the trek by myself, within a budget I could manage, and the timeframe I gave myself, I moved to Toronto with only what fit in my car - give or take a few things tucked among friends and left with my parents. In order for that to happen, I had to significantly prune away a lot of stuff.
While it is just 'stuff' and more 'stuff' is made and available to purchase every day, there's a process involved in choosing what's important, what can be done away with, and what makes sense to buy again. Maybe it's an easy process for some people, but it took a lot of thought and planning for me. I found it easy enough at the time, but now realize that it was a more taxing chore than I first thought.
I sold furniture, gave years of collected kitchen stuff and other things away. Put stuff on the curb hoping people would take it away for me. Donated a truckload to a women's shelter. Shared what food I had left with whoever would take it so I didn't have to waste it. Despite efforts to waste less, I created a lot of garbage. It was rather sad to look at. There came a point where even some perfectly-good stuff just couldn't be rescued. There was no time to find homes for any more!
My cats are living with my parents, where they're doing great and loving being loved. While I am certain that I am not homesick at all, there's a sense of loss that comes with no longer being able to jump in my car and quickly get to the home of my childhood. Very little is familiar to me when I consider my current surroundings. The way I drove on highways and through 'city' streets back home, is not at all like the way I need to drive to survive here. The climate is different, my commute is different, my office is different. Local people in my life are different.
Goals, needs, wants, actions, right down to the air I'm breathing. So much is new or changed. In a weak (and since regretted) moment, I let the Facebook world know I was praying for PMS. I wanted an excuse for the feelings I was overwhelmed with. A name to stick to the emotion that was annoying the hell out of me. Really, I just gotta call it what it is. Change.
In these few hours I've lived in my new city, I've had drastic extremes of emotions. I wouldn't give those emotions or moments of self-realization up for anything. I'll be the strongest and healthiest 'tree' in the city within the park.
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