Second Home?

The time is drawing nearer for me to return to Vancouver, and as usual, the feeling is bittersweet. I am of course very excited for my second year at UBC and I know I’m going to have a fantastic time with my friends there, but I’m also going to really miss my friends in Winnipeg. And honestly, I feel like I didn’t get enough time with my friends here.

It kind of strikes me that this is pretty much the same feeling I had last April when I left campus. I was very sad to leave my friends in BC and I wanted more time for first-year-dorm adventures, although I was also looking forward to seeing my Winnipeg friends again.

I was talking on Skype to a few of my UBC friends tonight, and they all said they were excited to “go home.” And I thought, am I going home too? Or leaving home? Right now, I feel like I’m leaving home, but once I’ve been at UBC for a little while I’m sure I’ll feel at home there as well. I believe that what makes a place a home is the people there. I have fantastic friends in both places, so does that make each place a home? Maybe.

I know that Winnipeg will always be my “first home” for several reasons; my boyfriend is here, my family is here, I have many friends here, I’m familiar with this city, it’s where I grew up. But perhaps UBC has grown into my “second home,” despite how when Steven Toope (the president of UBC) suggested that would happen at the orientation last September I thought to myself: “That is never gonna happen!” (True story.)

Well, things change. I mean, as I just said, Winnipeg is my home. My first home. But I’ve found a home for myself in Vancouver too, and I know I’ll be crazy sad when my time there is done, since it seems unlikely I’ll be able to stay in touch very well with my friends from UBC once I graduate.  I know, I know, I’m getting ahead of myself again.  I guess that’s a bridge I’ll have to cross when I get there, but for now I’m just feeling the bittersweet.