By the end of 2007 I was pretty eager for it to be over. I had this romantic idea in my head of the New Year, in which we would already have a place to live, jobs of some reasonably profitable sort and papers in progress. In other words we would wake up and be ahead of the game. This was only reinforced by one of those "If you have a place to sleep and some money in the bank and can read you are better off than 99% of the world's population" cheery type holiday Powerpoint card thingys, which proved once and for all that all my whining is that of a rich, impatient white girl peeking through toilet-paper rolls for perspective. And the fact remains that we ARE doing absolutely fine, and will be doing even better if Mr. O's mythical job offer ever comes through, and if we find a flat that doesn't leak heat all day and suffocate us all night.
Mr. O's argument is simple: we're not going to be within driving distance of my family whether we're in Toronto or Helsinki, so we might as well go where there's universal daycare and six-weeks' vacation. And he's right. Six months late in getting that message through to me, but right all the same. The frustration and fear that this move was a bad one, a mistake, and an expensive one at that, is still lingering under the surface of everything.
And yet, despite all the practical reasons why we should have stayed in Finland, being home with my family over the holidays, getting to know my five-year-old-when-I-left-16-year-old-now brother, thinking of my sister having kids, and my parents getting older, gets me in a root-laying-down mood. Canada's not so bad, eh? People manage to raise kids here just fine. I can fly home to see the fam for the weekend if I need to. I've got 10 times the job options here, plus writing courses, yoga classes, hairdressers, and doctors, all in English (Woo-hoo!). Toronto is a hard place to love, but once you get it - kinda like learning Finnish, hmm - it's intensely satisfying.
And so while nothing in our situation has actually changed since my last post, the change of the year has cleared away all the logistics and To-Do lists and left me with the bare cold shock (and yes, embarrassing as it may be, it is a shock) of the suddenly permanent distances in my life. The start of 2008 has put me in a state of cold shock that This Is How My Life Is Going To Be from now on. Because when it comes right down to it, Mr. O isn't staying here. Not forever. No way. And if I go, there are many things I will lose. Not to understate the things he will lose by staying here, but this is my blog and I'm being selfish so today it's all about me.
So I have a choice to make which is so much bigger than which neighbourhood to live in, whether I want to stay in journalism or not, whether we should rent or buy. I have to pick a continent, and a lifestyle. Fuck fuck fuck.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I think the one thing you could get out of your head is that this was an expensive mistake. However things turn out, this is a time where you're both learning about yourselves, and gaining a very clear picture of what each option represents. I think that takes away from any source of regret later on, which is a valuable thing to have.
And maybe something crazy will happen, like you will both get jobs that allow you to divide your time between Canada and Finland for different parts of the year. Maybe now's a good time to dream about something between the either/or?
Oowee.. I know what you mean about the New Year. I got talked into thinking it might change something but.. hey. Here we are, it's 2008 and the problems haven't gone anywhere, but I suppose we both just have to get on with it and figure stuff out. *hugs thee*
Post a Comment