Three years exile

It was three years ago I left the budding apple blossoms on Vancouver Island to get on a plane and come to the other side of the country. We landed just ahead of a brutal winter snowstorm that our friends Mike and Jen got caught in, right behind us. I got to my mother-in-law's and fell onto the spare bed in exhaustion, only to wake up and find out that the Maritimes was now covered in a foot of snow. Life got worse and worse for a long time after that. There were many times I thought I would lose my mind and I am sure there were moment I fell into the abyss of insanity. Each day I have walked along that frightening rim, trying to find my way back home.

Three years and this will be my fourth winter here. We are getting off easy. The rest of Canada suffers. Even the island has had more snow than we have. When will it feel easier to me? Is there any making this better? I wish I knew if I was any closer to going home or will there be another three years ahead of me? Perhaps it is better if I do not know, every day is hard enough.

We are approaching the winter solstice. I do look forward to the Sun's return and yet, I feel like the pagan in me hardly breathes. I light candles now, it helps. It always amazes me that firelight does make me feel less alone. Still, my homesickness only deepens. I wonder how that can even be possible? How can it get worse?

I left Toronto and my family fifteen years ago. It was not easy but I mutated and survived, as my husband likes to say. In fifteen years I have moved nine times. I am not a newbie to change. I am not a child, young and naive, missing her mommy. This is the first time I have leapt and a part of me has been left behind. I try, nothing makes it better. I get through each day, one recipe at a time. I focus on the food and making delicious memories. It is all I have.

Three years... I have now been here twice as long as I lived on Vancouver Island. I can't wrap my brain around that fact. Of course it feels like decades. I do not expect things to get better. I only ask that they don't get worse. How is it that time in winter falls like the most patient snowflake? Its slowness makes me want to scream.

Instead, I bake cookies.

BTW, right after I published this, a snowstorm started! Good grief.