Once Upon a Time — Five Years Ago. . . .

Five years ago March, we listed our island home for sale; five years ago, April, I made an announcement here on the blog that we’d sold it.

And shortly afterward, I posted again to explain how/why we’d originally moved — with three of our four kids, then 10-17 —  to a waterfront cabin on a small island off a big island (Vancouver Island) in the Salish Sea. I called this post “How We Got Here, Why We’re Leaving, Part the First. . . (and yes, there is a second post as well, and I’ll share that with you here in a few days).

So we’ll have been in this home five years come September. Ah, that was a summer of transition, Summer 2016! . . . And to mark the anniversary, I thought I’d repost “How We Got Here, Why We’re Leaving” in its entirety, right here, rather than linking. . .

Here it is:

So many ideas for posts, this move is triggering, even while we’re only at the first stage of waiting for our home to be sold (in case you’re curious, yes, there is some action but it would be tempting fate to say much more than that, I think). Today, though, I’m going to answer a question from another Ceri, her namesake’s comment having already propelled another post. Ceri in London wondered why we are moving from a home we obviously love, and she speculates that it might have “something to do with the stage of life and the choices we have to make as income reduces and our children become more settled.”
Okay, yes, I began this post a couple of weeks ago, but was too tired, busy, or conflicted emotionally, to finish it. Today, I’ve dusted off the draft, realised it’s pretty close and that any more stalling will soon render it stale-dated. So here you go. 

The short answer would be that Ceri is right and the move has to do with this stage of life. But if you’ll indulge me, I’ll give you a longer answer. What I hope to explain is why, when we knew we wanted to be back in the city for our last few decades, if not earlier, why did we make such a long detour through a small city that (if we’d been more rigorously honest, if we hadn’t been so thoroughly seduced by one tiny island) we knew all along we’d have to leave. . .

A brief summary seems necessary first: we both grew up in small cities near Vancouver, and we bought our first home in one of those cities when we were Oh! So! Young! (24 and 26, respectively, our daughter only 1). We sold that home to move, for my husband’s work, to a very small city (population 17,000,  140-kilometres to next real dot on the map, a town of 11,000) a 1000-kilometre, two-day drive from our families only three years later, and although we came to embrace small-town life and made many good friends in our seven years there, we visited our families “down South” (as the local geography had it) often, and our kids somehow were always oriented to city life. We’ve often wondered if my husband should have held out a bit longer for a promotion or transfer to Vancouver rather than accepting a transfer to the Vancouver Island city of 60,000 that became our next home. In fact, he was invited to apply for such a position within six months of our settling in to our new home, by which time, of course, we weren’t willing to uproot the kids again, and our life here has been so rich that we don’t regret the long detour.

Our first home here was in an area that still featured some rural zoning, but was transitioning to subdivisions. Cows grazed in a field across the street; a lone horse leaned over a fence into the playground at the kids’ community school; and we could walk to a beach, cutting through forest paths on the way, in fifteen minutes. Our kids spread themselves out in various grades at that elementary school, but the community grew so quickly that, besides pastures being replaced by cul-de-sacs, the daughter who had to take a bus to high school her first three years transferred to a beautiful new school back in the ‘hood, built to accommodate all the families moving into the area. The growth meant that my music studio always had a waiting list, and it also meant that there was abundant community support for all those activities kids take on: I could share driving for swimming lessons, gymnastics, piano lessons, soccer practice and away games.  Much as I was grateful, though, for a network of families with similar commitment to their children’s development, the ever-so-slight coercive sense of subdivision life began to grate. (One Christmas, for example, our eight-year-old daughter was surprisingly thrilled at one of my siblings’ gift of a set of water and juice glasses and asked if she could be the one to put them in the cupboard — because, she said, happily setting them in place one by one, “Now we have all matching glasses in the proper cupboard like all my friends.” . . . poor, previously deprived child. . . )

Gradually, that dissonance became more pronounced, and although I was happily, if busily, juggling my music-teaching with my kid-chauffeuring with completing my B.A. at the local uni, we occasionally admitted that once the kids eventually moved on, our home’s location was too random, really, to believe it could be our “forever home.” Not that we articulated such a concept so precisely, but we had come to the city for only one reason, my husband’s work, and it began to appear that there wouldn’t be enough steps on the ladder here to accommodate his potential. For a while, we both scratched our itchy ambitions through education: I finished my BA and started an MA, and he did an MBA designed to accommodate executives working full-time. Those were crazily busy years.

And during those years, our mortgage got very close to being paid off. As well, while admitting that a big-city move might be best for career advancement, the kids were thriving, for now.  Somehow, then, our restlessness got displaced into looking at recreational property, and somehow (a story for another long post, someday!) we discovered a waterfront cottage just within our financial grasp, and somehow, two years, after buying it, we decided to consolidate our lives in a NE-facing, 800-square-foot cabin. Again, fodder for another long post, all the commuting we then did, kids to school and soccer games and part-time jobs; me to Vancouver, then Victoria, for grad school; Paul to a new job in Vancouver and then a much bigger commute to Ottawa. . . If we hadn’t found this home (which we renovated into a more reasonable 1700 square feet, with an additional 300 in a guest cottage),  we probably would have moved to Vancouver, perhaps even to Ottawa for a while.

But as challenging as the logistics of island life undoubtedly were, the charms of a beautiful setting, a tight-knit community so safe that kids could head out to meet their friends sometime after breakfast, call in for sandwiches a few hours later, and show up for dinner dirty but happy . . . Not to mention swimming in the ocean fifty feet from our front door, gathering on the beach with neighbours to admire passing orcas. . . We lived in our first house for three years, the second for seven, the third for eight, and then, somehow, this place we bought on a crazy impulse 24 years ago this fall has been our full-time home for 21 years.

One by one, of course, the kids moved on. One daughter and her then-boyfriend/now-husband moved into the guest cottage for a year while both went to university the year before she headed off to grad school; my son, our youngest, moved away for a gap year before university, then back home, then a few stutters away and back for co-op terms before the nest was completely empty. My husband worked a few years on the other side of the country, then a few more across the (Georgia) Strait, while I stayed in place so that the kids could finish up high school, then university here in town, meanwhile getting my Master’s, then my PhD, then landing a position right in the university here in town. Thus even after Pater retired five years ago, even though the kids were obviously settling in the big city, beginning to raise their own kids, it made sense to stay here until I was ready to retire.

We’d bought the apartment over in the city when Pater landed a promotion there ten or so years ago,and buying a place in an upwardly-trending market made more sense than renting, especially since the kids began gravitating there. Increasingly, I’d be packing up on Thursday or Friday night, trying to remember everything I’d need for an urban weekend, lugging stacks of marking and materials to be prepped. We called it “the best of both worlds,” and it was, but bit by bit, the back-and-forth grew a bit wearying. When we were in the city, I crammed my work into early morning and late evening hours, and all the rest seemed to be spent catching up with the younger generations. A treat, absolutely, but when we got back to our island home, we were happy to collapse in our big leather armchairs by the woodstove.

In fact, between my work, which tended to chew up weekends and evenings during term, and Pater’s numerous contracts and the several boards he serves on, any social life on this side of the pond languished, and really, on the other side, we only socialised with family.  The ride from town to island in our very reliable commuter boat only takes ten minutes, but during the long winter months, there’s not much appeal crossing in the dark, especially if it’s raining and blowing hard, or if the docks are treacherous with ice. Over the years we’ve become less and less willing to do that crossing, and when we’re on the island, we tend to stay home of an evening, October through March. Not a problem when I was working and either had marking or prep to do or was glad enough for the respite of a Netflix binge, but we’re beginning to want a bit more activity.

Similarly, when I was working, my social energies tended to be exhausted by my students, and I didn’t mind so much that we declined many weekend invitations because we were planning to visit the kids in Vancouver. But part of the sadness that’s been hitting me the last few years is tied into the huge difference between the rich friendships I nurtured much more carefully before teaching full-time and the ones whose potential I’ve only tenuously grasped lately.  Moving up my retirement date was at least partly motivated by a determination to give more to friendships, both old and new.

There are certainly people our age living on our little island who manage very active social lives here with a rich complement of hobbies and interests, many of which they pursue “in town,” happily commuting by boat, even on those dark winter evenings. But having raised four children who chose to live “away,” we now have five grandchildren growing up in places that require a minimum half day’s travel, round-trip.  If even two of those grandkids were living in town, we’d probably stay here, but their parents have good jobs and full lives in cities we like.  We’re the ones with flexibility now, so with the logistics of that travel growing more wearing, we decided definitively a few years ago that once I retired, we’d give ourselves two to five years to enjoy the island together, at a more relaxed pace, and then move to Vancouver. . .

Next up, a (much shorter, I promise) post about why, having decided to have at least a couple of years together enjoying a slower-paced island life, did we put the house on the market, setting in motion a period of our lives that is not characterised by the words “enjoying” or “slower-paced.”

Meanwhile, though, as always, your comments are welcome. I’m curious to know how many of you have relocated for similar reasons. I’d always marveled at people who move across the country to a city or town where they knew no one but their own adult child’s family. The uprooting from their own lives seemed so drastic to me, and yet I could see that most often, these moves were happy ones with new social lives established, new activities adopted, new nests feathered. Our move will not be nearly as drastic, moving to a city we’ve had lifelong ties to, but I’m still feeling a bit apprehensive about making sure we establish fulfilling, interesting, joyful lives independent of our children and grandchildren. So your experience would be appreciated. I’m also happy to share what we find along the way, for those of you who anticipate similar moves down the road.

But now, it’s time for yoga. Namaste!

In case you’re curious about the many comments this post generated the first time, here’s the link to the original.

No yoga for me this morning, five years later, give or take a couple of weeks. I’ve already done a workout (Arms and Abs, oof!) hoping for the endorphins. Not sure those arrived, but I did work up an appetite. And it so happens I also baked some coconut oatmeal cookies (to use up the Sweetened Shredded Coconut Paul bought by mistake). A dangerous response to a low mood, I know, but sometimes needs must, right? I’ll have a big bowl of healthy vegetable soup first, promise. . .

Wishing you all a Good Weekend — leave a comment below if you have a moment. I’m curious to know how many of you were here reading five years ago, whether or not that timeline surprises you, whether any of you have made big transitions in your own lives since then. And those of you who have shown up here more recently,  I suppose I’m curious to know if this glimpse into my previous life changes your perception of me.

Or, as usual, any comment the post evokes, except the nasty and the blatantly commercial.

xo,

f