Just returned from a visit with my lovely parents and island people. I miss them. I get that feeling of history, of rootedness, of grounding when I am there with them.
Being out of the city fills me with a much deeper sense of who I am and where I come from than living in Vancouver does. The difference pace, the slower, less frantic rhythm appeals. So do the property prices, frankly.... and the parental support that would be available, for SMCing.
I could buy an actual house for the same money I could buy a dilapidated one bedroom condo here. If I was willing to swallow my pride, I could buy a double-wide trailer that was on the posh side with wood stove, spacious living, and multiple bedrooms/good locale for an amount I could pay off in less than a decade.
My parents would be available for company and support, whenever. That's one of the things I especially miss... everyone in the city is wonderful, but that seems to also come hand in hand with "busy with laundry list of activities" and thus lack the easy drop by intimacy that island folk have, to do their own thing in the same spot companionably.
People don't pull a freakout on the island if they see your child having a soda pop as a treat, or eating non-organic apples; there is a heightened sense of privacy and family choice.
What brings that dream of moving back to a screeching halt is my job. It's a city job, with the raises I've earned due to city regionalization and specialization. I would lose all that, and have to work my way up again from shift work and on call shifts. If I'd just stayed on the island that would have worked out perfectly, but I didn't. I grew and changed and moved here, and now I have to make the best of it. Or win the lotto. That's a valid option, right?
:r
Sometimes it depresses me, the what-if's of different paths. And other times it makes me keep my eyes open for possible slightly different careers that would lead me back to something that seems brighter.
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