Big changes ahead. I've followed my intuition, and quit my job here in England to return home to Vancouver, a new job, and my family and friends. This new job, in fact, fell into my lap when a friend, without me knowing about it, took the initiative to suggest to her former bosses that they look me up and consider whether I'd be a good addition to their team, an act of kindness that has really meant so much to me. I have always hoped that my friends know that I will do anything I can to support them, whenever and however they need me. To have someone do the same for me, to make the effort that I couldn't seem to make myself...well, it makes me speechless, wordless, with gratitude. So, in one sense, I am at peace with my decision to return home to Vancouver, and to the warm and generous people who are a part of my life there.
However, this was not an easy decision and it will not be a move that I make without a sense of wistfulness and, to a lesser extent, trepidation and insecurity about whether I can really go home again. Although I know in my heart it is what I need to do to be happy and healthy, part of me is already grieving for London, despite how difficult it has been for me here. I feel, in some ways, that I have failed to accomplish whatever it was I thought I came here to do (which I can't even articulate, really). It feels like the giving up of a dream that didn't quite come true. Also, my work colleagues here, with whom I have been essentially quarantined in the office for the better part of a year, have become my war buddies, my close friends, and to abandon them now does grieve me, no matter how hopeful and grateful I am for the future in Vancouver.
I went for drinks with a work friend tonight to celebrate my decision. He sent me the following message, after we had parted ways:
"One year on, who will you be? What will have happened? So exciting! Forgive me if that has eclipsed my sadness at your leaving. Guess excitement takes precedence, for me at least, as I hope it does for you. Hope you can and do act to keep that so. Congrats again! Yippee!"
So. Despite the pangs of homesickness I will feel for London, I look forward to returning to the Left Coast, where I belong, to finding some balance in my life so that I have time to run and write and sing and dream, to be surrounded by people who know me, have always known me. That has perhaps been the most tiring thing about moving here, to a new country, alone: always having to explain who I was, and what I was about.
Tonight I am grateful for my friends in both homes who will always play a much-valued role in my journey. And I will do my best to take my friend's advice: I'm going to let excitement eclipse sadness, and choose to look forward rather than back.
However, this was not an easy decision and it will not be a move that I make without a sense of wistfulness and, to a lesser extent, trepidation and insecurity about whether I can really go home again. Although I know in my heart it is what I need to do to be happy and healthy, part of me is already grieving for London, despite how difficult it has been for me here. I feel, in some ways, that I have failed to accomplish whatever it was I thought I came here to do (which I can't even articulate, really). It feels like the giving up of a dream that didn't quite come true. Also, my work colleagues here, with whom I have been essentially quarantined in the office for the better part of a year, have become my war buddies, my close friends, and to abandon them now does grieve me, no matter how hopeful and grateful I am for the future in Vancouver.
I went for drinks with a work friend tonight to celebrate my decision. He sent me the following message, after we had parted ways:
"One year on, who will you be? What will have happened? So exciting! Forgive me if that has eclipsed my sadness at your leaving. Guess excitement takes precedence, for me at least, as I hope it does for you. Hope you can and do act to keep that so. Congrats again! Yippee!"
So. Despite the pangs of homesickness I will feel for London, I look forward to returning to the Left Coast, where I belong, to finding some balance in my life so that I have time to run and write and sing and dream, to be surrounded by people who know me, have always known me. That has perhaps been the most tiring thing about moving here, to a new country, alone: always having to explain who I was, and what I was about.
Tonight I am grateful for my friends in both homes who will always play a much-valued role in my journey. And I will do my best to take my friend's advice: I'm going to let excitement eclipse sadness, and choose to look forward rather than back.