Well, I’m going to be completely honest with you. After being back home for a week, I really didn’t want to come back here to Barrhead.
No, it’s not because I don’t like you or that I met and fell in love with a wonderful girl while I was home.
Instead, it’s because as the time approached that I had to board the plane back here, I was checking out the weather forecasts, and seeing that Edmonton and Barr-head were roughly 20 to 30 degrees COLDER than Toronto.
Now, having been here last winter and having chided my friends back home for complaining about -20 C overnight lows when we got -20 C daytime highs, I know what Alberta winters are all about.
Still, being in a place where it’s more than 20 degrees warmer than where you have to return to makes you really want to stay put.
And, of course, being amongst friends also didn’t make it a slam-dunk that I wanted to return.
But, I’m back. I knew I’d return because I am actually quite content here. Having learned my lessons from the past, I know that an experience is what you make of it, and I’m making the most of it.
At least I think I’m making the most of it. After all, I have been out here for more than a year now. I must be doing something right.
Wow, it really doesn’t feel like it.
It doesn’t feel like it was one year ago Nov. 29 that I started working at the Westlock News.
It doesn’t feel like it was a year ago I left home. Again. To pursue a career.
It didn’t feel like I’d been gone from home for close to a year when my parents were driving me home from picking me up from the subway. Driving on the same roads we always used to get back home, it felt like I’d only been gone a few days.
They will say you can never go home again, but I would have to disagree. Sure, I know the sentiment is meant to be a lot more complicated than simply physically returning, but it still felt like I had never left.
Visiting friends, the topics of conversation were still the same — work, dating, the past.
Riding the subway and streetcars, I am still the transit ninja.
Popping into my old high school, I’m still some form of celebrity (hello, ego boost).
I think the only real change was that coming home was a long time coming. I had never been away for that long, and even though I’ll likely be back there in July for another wedding, it still won’t feel like it’s been another seven months until I return home.
But for all my reminiscing, I’m refreshed (if a bit under the weather) and ready to tackle whatever this town throws at me until I leave again.
