Unlike Paul Simon, I’ve never made a very good island. I’m more the moss that sticks onto the rock, rather than the rock itself.
I just returned to another week of work in Vancouver after an amazing weekend with my friends in Victoria. Since having moved back to the Mainland in September after five years at UVic, I’ve already been back to visit three times. This time when my friends in YVR asked why I was making another four hour+ trek across the Georgia Strait, I had no reason to give other than the fact that I miss Victoria like crazy.
My life in Vancouver has settled nicely in the past months I’ve been here. I’m working a job I’m interested in with a chance to actually save some money and make a dent on my student debt. I see my family more and have reunited with a great group of girls who are amazing feminist allies. I’ve been involved in some great volunteer projects. My life is in Vancouver, still some days I still feel like Victoria is home.
When I first started my degree, I would tell people that I lived in Vancouver and was simply going to school in Victoria. I spent eight months of the school semester looking forward to the four summer months I could spend at home. I had plenty of excuses: Victoria was too small/the mountains and oceans aren’t as pretty/people are too hip/boring/the transit system sucks and even the busses are trying to be more sophisticated than they actually are. After a few years though, I met more people and began to explore the city. I realized that Victoria’s smallness allowed for a strong community. I loved walking down Johnson St. and running into a few familiar faces and Vancouver’s downtown core began to feel alienating. I even conquered the archaic transit system by getting a bike. Then I moved in with my best friends and Victoria finally felt like home. By then, I had finished my degree and I had to move back and start the process of building my life all over.
Basically, it takes me awhile to adjust to change.
Although I know that they’re only a text, phone call, or boat ride away, I miss having a close by network of friends and allies on the island. I miss being able to walk downtown. I miss going to the bar, only paying $5 and knowing everyone inside. I miss being a bit of an irresponsible fail; something about being in Vancouver (especially not being a student) demands more responsibility. My friends here have jobs, apartments, relationships, etc. Victoria was okay with me not having my shit figured out yet.
More than anything, I miss what Victoria represents: the city reminds me of a time in my life where I knew who I was and really liked that person. Once I find that place, whether it be physical or mental, I’m hard pressed to let it go.
I have many friends who uproot themselves to plunk down in a new environment halfway across the country with no problems. I am not one of those people, though I often wish I could be. This past weekend, a friend told me that he has just decided to move to Fort McMurray for work. He’ll be working in the bush, 28 days on, seven off.
“I was told to bring a lot of books, a lot of movies and a lot of porn,” he said.
He left today, less than a week from when he was offered the job.
Where I needed months of preparation for overly-ceremonious goodbyes to move a 15-minute plane ride away, he moves to the middle of nowhere Alberta, far from all his friends and family, with the same amount of anxiety as I feel when I head to the grocery store.
One of my best friends is traipsing around Europe en solo with no end-date in site. She is couch-surfing and going to Czech village parties, and she’s doing it all thousands of miles away from any one that she’s known longer than a week. She may be gone another six months, maybe another two years. She said a while before she left that she could see herself never moving back.
I see the adventures they’re having and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to do the same. I’m so scared of things changing, people moving, that I wonder if I’m leaving much room for growth.
For an educated, 21st-century kinda women, a strong dependence on others is generally frowned upon. Strong women take care of themselves, right? Is my inability to strike out on my own a feminist failure?
Every day I hope not. Most days I don’t think so.
Maybe being this ultra independent lady is just not who I am. I like being the one in the group who organizes big family dinners, who throws the big parties, who calls people up I haven’t seen in months or years to go for coffee. I like to think I’m good at caring for people around me and I kinda depend on people needing that care. I like being familiar with the city I’m living in. I love building a close group of friends who I miss and who miss me when I’m gone. Maybe my dependance on those around me is actually one of my strengths.
Sure, I need to work on being more flexible when circumstances change. I also need to understand that my island-self is pretty similar to the self who’s writing this post, and get it out of my head that I’m “failing” at living in Vancouver if I go visit Victoria.
I am lucky enough to have two great communities I feel deeply connected to. Maybe one day I’ll be ready to take off alone to less familiar terrain, but today, that is good enough.
