Or maybe un-rooted is more like it.
See, I grew up on the lower mainland, near (enough) Vancouver for those of you not from this area. I spent my formative years there and it was home.
Then I planned to move over here for school and my parents decided to move over here to retire. And in a lot of ways wherever my parents are is home, but I fell in love with this town and its pace and I didn't want to go back to the mainland.
I needed a break from the person I'd become over there and I didn't have any friends keeping me there and my brother had already left too, so Victoria became my home.
I've got my parents here and I have friends here now and it's coming close to the time when I'll have lived here almost as long as I lived over there, but where you come from is still somehow your home.
Spending a highly stressful week and a half in Vancouver for my Dad's surgery didn't make me want to move back to the mainland although I did very much enjoy Vancouver's public transit system and the multitude of handsome men I saw.
Coming back here though I've felt unsettled.
I don't have roots anywhere. Or that's what it feels like.
This isn't my hometown. The house I grew up in isn't here. I can't drive by my elementary school or drop by and see my old high school hangouts.
I can't drive along the strip and laugh at the teenagers doing what I used to do. I don't have a past here.
My friends here are all in relationships, most of them with young kids or babies, they're at different places in their lives than I am and I feel a little lost.
I'm not quite sure where to call home anymore, and for the first time in my life I'm feeling like I don't know where I belong. Things feel foreign here, but I don't know where else to go. I can't go back, things wouldn't be the same there either. My friends from home have kids and babies too and are married with mortgages and someone else has bought the house I grew up in and there's no longer the same streets or trees or people.
I've always made a big deal about how I'd never leave Victoria, but maybe facing the fact that my parents won't always be here makes me wonder what, exactly, I call home.
I hope this is just another passing effect of my Dad's illness and I hope in time I feel settled here again, because this is an odd sensation.
7 comments:
This is normal. Completely.
I've been there. I'll move to the island one day. But for now, I like it being my getaway spot to escape the chaos of the mainland.
There is something special about both the mainland and the island for sure. On the mainland, you're anonymous. On the island, everyone knows your business... err I mean is a "tighter community".
You're understandably dishelved right now. Give it time, the roots will find you again.
I hope so...
I don't think it is at all cliche to say "home is where the heart is"...
I moved here seven years ago from Winterpeg, Manisnowba and it will always be my home for the same reasons you pine about Vacouver...Winnipeg is my town. When I go there, I feel like I own it. I know the place inside out and know all the great places to eat, drink and see live music. When I visit, I feel a little like a star. But, man I love Victoria!
I love its temperance, size, proximity to the verdant wilderness. I like Vancouver because it is a great place to visit and it's a bit of a destination! I cannot ever see myself living there.
Your heart is out of sorts so, nauturally you don't feel at home right now. You'll find it again!
Peace,
Allan
www.westcoastislander.weebly.com
Yup I totally understand you. I'm from Quebec and have been on the west coast for 4.5 years... my parents divorced, sold the house a few years back. My dad lives in a different city.
Home is there but it's here too. Home back there is not the way it used to be, it'll never be the same if I go back. If I stay home, here, I have no real roots (starting to grow) but I don't know if here is my forever home.. or maybe it will be the next place I move to.
And true, home is where the heart is.
I think what you're going through right now is totally normal... part of growing up, growing old, becoming an adult, however you call it
That's a great way to put it Allan, my heart is out of sorts...very true, thanks.
C'est vrai, Unknown, it may not feel good, but I guess it is normal...part of that whole growing up thing.
If it makes you feel any better.
I was born in Denmark, went to elementary school in Brazil, high school in Eastern US, Univ in Midwest US, Jobs all over US and Canada and now live in lower mainland.
Elementary school is in Rio so no driving by there any time soon, high school hangouts are in Pittsburgh, so... no. University is in Minnesota... yeah >> no.
The houses I grew up in are spread all over and by extension so are the roads and trees.
"Home is where the heart is" and if Victoria is that, then you are home. We all have a little Hjemve (ie. homesickness) to where it is directed usually depends on what triggered it. To me it's sights, sounds, smells and tastes that trigger a type of homesickness for one place or the next, but I remember it now as a pleasant memory and understand that if I were ever to go back that it would be different and would not feel like Home again, at least not like it did then.
I think that's maybe it a little Claus, I'm not sure where my heart is right now. It's a little tender I guess... but I can't imagine having spent time in so many places. Good for you :)
Post a Comment