As I alluded to in my 1:2 blog, There’s No Place Like Home, the values of a home, at least for me, are most often evoked in its absence. This comes in a variety of different ways, as for most people, home has come to mean more than one thing or place over the course of their lives. In my experience, it is once I am away from my home, that the values you take for granted while there become obvious in their sudden absence, and it is in their absence that makes the anticipation for return so high, and a return to home so significant.

In many cases however, a return to home will never be what it once was, and that feeling that a particular home evoked will never be realistically returned. When we move from place to place, the home we are leaving, the one we were accustomed to for whatever extended period of time immediately loses its significance in our every day lives, and merely becomes a time and place from our past. I spent my final semester at UBC living near Cambie and Broadway, across the street from city hall. I only spent four months there, but it was easily the coolest living experience of my life. Having spent my entire childhood in the heart of suburbia of two different cities, in addition to four years living on campus, the feeling of independence and quality of life I enjoyed living in the heart of Vancouver was a whole new world, one I wasn’t eager to let go of. I knew a move back to Calgary would be coming in the New Year, and so it was a melancholy final month in Vancouver, trying to enjoy each day as it came, knowing I’d soon be leaving a place I had so quickly fallen in love with. It was a very foreign experience. It wasn’t as though a return to Calgary was something I wasn’t used to; I had done this every April for the past four years. Yet for the first time, there was no return date.

It’s ironic really, looking back at myself as an 18 year old in August of 2009. With a move to Vancouver looming at the start of the next month, a war of emotions duked it out as my days left in Calgary started to grow fewer and fewer. Anxiety, excitement, fear, uncertainty all went toe to toe over the course of the last week or two, though the negatives seemed to be winning the battles. Fortunately for me, within my first few hours of moving into residence, several beers and some casual banter with my rez-mates, I was a little more at ease with my decision and new home. Within a week I was convinced it was the best decision I had ever made. Yet every now and then, something would happen that would remind me of the home I had for the time being, left behind, and the values in that home I no longer had the luxury of enjoying, the most obvious and significant of which was family.

Moving away from home was coped with via typical college debauchery. University was fun

In such, my experience moving in the opposite direction four and a half years later hasn’t been much different. Within twelve hours of leaving the lush green of Vancouver that I had come to take for granted, I was pulling off an icy road into my snow covered driveway, accompanied by subzero temperatures. However, within five seconds of seeing my family, I was happy to be back at my old home, my new home. Within a month I had begun a great job just south of Fort McMurray. While the experience has lacked the flair of beginning a university career, it has certainly been a rewarding step in the right direction.

“Sanka watcha smokin’ mon?” “I ain’t smokin’! I’m breathin!”

Every so often at work when the northern Alberta cold hits me like a punch to the lungs, I find myself daydreaming back to my old Vancouver home, wondering what life would have been like had I stayed longer. Predictably warmer. Once the dream fades the reality of my new life and home sets in. But for a kid who split his childhood between Alaska and Alberta, it’s a great reality, a reality and home that involves family, friends, opportunity, and a great quality of life.