Over The Mountains in January

The actual act of moving has never been fun for me. The planning, the new location, the new adventure is always fun, but the actual move is not so much. I grew up in small town Alberta Canada. I loved it, but it was time for change. My daughter was an adult and living her life, in the next town. I was single and really nothing was keeping me there. My mom had moved three hours away, my brother and his family an hour away.

I had always loved the mountains, in fact it was completely my GO TO place, so why not live there… sort of. My father had always said we should move to British Columbia, we loved it. So it wasn’t a big leap, he had passed away a few years earlier so why not. My destination was Vancouver Island, and the fact I knew nothing about the Island or really what to expect didn’t really phase me. I moved from the home I had been in for over 10 years, sold pretty much everything and donated what was left that wouldn’t fit into my Ford Focus.

Change is good. I must have said that over and over in my head as I began the journey. My daughter came with me, more to make sure I arrived alive, and too see where I would now be living. Now a move like this is fairly easy in the summer, or even late spring or early fall….. but I like a challenge… actually no, I just didn’t plan well. Heading over the Rockie Mountains in January was definitely a challenge, snow storms, wrong turns and getting lost was all apart of the adventure.

The weather changed drastically from one side of the mountains to the other…. More then a few times I thought we are not going to make it, but there really was no going back at that point for me. I had no home, no job and I had jumped into this with both feet, I had to keep moving on.

As we drove, I had a lot of time to think. Change was good, right? I was putting a mountain between me and my family… something I would never have done before, and frankly I was second guessing. We are a close family, always living near each other and here I was moving 10 to 12 hours away by car or 2 hours by plane. When you look at that change was ok. There would be phone calls, FaceTime, and visits to me and there again.

I knew this change was real as I said good bye to my daughter when it was time for her to fly back to Calgary. I didn’t bother holding back tears, couldn’t have even if I wanted too. I was on the Island, my family was not. This was change I wasn’t completely ready for, but it was still good I thought. Three moves in 14 months, three job changes, seeing things I never saw before that I can’t un-see, and never feeling so broken as I did.

My time on the Island was full of changes, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I learned a lot about myself and who I was as a person, as a mom of an adult child, as really being on my own, as failing and surviving when things didn’t go according to the loose plan I had.

I did return to live in Alberta 14 months later. I came back different then I left, for the better in some ways and the stronger In most. I look at my BC adventure as a trial by fire, I believe you should step out of your comfort zone and grow. The only constant in life is change, I’m glad I took the leap.