Saying Good-bye, and Starting Over

Greetings from Thunder Bay!

As regular readers will know, I have recently been through some significant upheaval in my life.

While preparing to move to Thunder Bay to attend Teacher’s College, I accepted an offer from a friend who wanted to buy my house. Needless to say, my last three weeks in the Sault were very, very busy.

While I will be back in the Sault in November for my first teaching practicum, and again in March for my second, and while I would like to find employment as a teacher in the Sault, there is no doubt that what I was doing was saying ‘good-bye.’

Sorting through my belongings, some of which I inherited from my parents, was a difficult task. I kept some, putting most in storage for the next 8 months. I donated some to my friend Sandy B who will be participating in the “World’s Biggest Garage Sale” in support of the ARCH building campaign. I gave the appliances away to friends of friends who were just starting out on their own.

Much of what I found, however, was just junk. It’s amazing how much junk we collect over the years. Many friends and neighbours told me they dreaded ever having to move, for much the same reason.

I left the Sault in 1986 and moved to Southern Ontario. I had several false starts over the years, changing jobs and moving several times before returning to the Sault in 1993. For the longest time it seemed as though my life has been spent one taking step forward and two back. Over the last few years there has been a slow, almost imperceptible shift to where I now feel as though I am, finally, moving forward.

I found it rather cathartic to spend the better part of a week sorting through a house-full of belongings, packing those which I intended to keep or give away, and tossing the rest into a dumpster. I came to realize that I was in a rut, surrounded by familiar objects from my past, and living in the house which had been my family’s for almost thirty years.

Getting rid of the junk that had accumulated, however familiar and comforting it was, allowed me to say good-bye to the rut that I had been living in, and to begin moving forward, starting over once again.

The most difficult part of the week came on Friday 31 August. I had my cat — which had been my mother’s — put to sleep. She was about 17 years old, mostly blind with cataracts, arthritic and unable to jump on or off the furniture, and no longer able to groom herself. I must say that the hardest part was bringing her to the Vet’s office — the actual act, while very sad, was very peaceful.

Saying good-bye to Kitty really underscored the significance of this period of change in my life. With all that’s happened in the past few weeks, and with arriving here in Thunder Bay and starting Teacher’s College, it truly seems as though I have left my old life behind, and am starting over once again.

It’s an odd feeling, however. On one hand, it feels rather liberating, with nothing holding me back. If, after graduating, I should be unable to find a job in the Sault, accepting a job elsewhere will only be a matter of taking my belongings out of storage and loading them into a U-Haul.

On the other hand, I am effectively “homeless” right now. While I am not destitute and living on the street, the knowledge that I no longer have a place to call home is somewhat unsettling.

Really, I haven’t taken all that many risks in my life. Even moving to Southern Ontario, while a significant change, wasn’t all that much of a risk. I had spent several years traveling throughout the region, attending conferences and visiting friends, so it was almost as familiar to me as the Sault. I initially moved-in with a cousin and a friend, I shared my second apartment with a friend, and always had friends near by. And of course, I could come “home” to visit my parents any time I wanted.

This is different.

My parents have been gone for 14 years now, and I no longer have a home to go back to. I’m living, albeit temporarily, in a strange city. I have no home to which I can return.

It is, after all, our choices which define who we really are. While I had made some positive choices over the past few years, including going back to university to obtain a second degree, I don’t think I had really made the decision to move forward, until now.

Admittedly, this kind of upheaval is not for everyone. But for some, like myself, who find themselves stuck in a rut, plodding through life and waiting for things to “work out,” perhaps it’s time to choose to move forward.

But… that’s just my opinion.