Day 4 - The Adventure Begins, but first....

For those of you who don’t know: my mother is awesome. 

I had a day to kill by myself because my friends all had to work and the train to Jasper didn’t depart until 8:30pm. My mom had emailed my earlier in the week to ensure I hadn’t forgotten anything in my haste of last-minute packing. Somehow I hadn’t, but did have second thoughts about certain things I’d left behind deliberately. She had arranged to come to Vancouver for the day to spend it with me; a much better way to say goodbye than five minutes before she went to work with a very long hug. 

I met her at 9:30 this morning, with half my things in tow: a bag resulting from my attempts to downsize my luggage and my duffel bag which she desperately wanted me to replace. We went for breakfast at the uber-swanky (mostly just crazy expensive) The Yew restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel. Then, before heading over to the Art Gallery for their surrealism exhibit (yay Salvador Dalí, among others), we sought out a backpack. Also crazy expensive, but much better than what I had. Much as I love that cheap duffel bag that I bought in Spain for something like 7 euros, it is not the greatest second bag for this particular journey. It was a good thing we bought the new backpack when we did though, because it turns out that the bottle of hand cream I had requested (also purchased in Spain) had exploded in my bag. The lady in the store was very patient and helpful, giving us paper towel so that I could clean out my bag and get the goo off of my clothes, etc. After that we headed to the art gallery for some very odd art. 

Once we finished with all of that, we were left with just over an hour before she planned to head back to Victoria. As soon as we got to that point I started crying. I had a fabulous time and I’m immensely glad that she came, but saying goodbye is never easy. 

Sitting on the train now, the reality of my final destination still hasn’t quite sunk in. It comes and goes, and right now all I can think of is going to Jasper and all that entails. I still have details to work out for my next stop after that: Calgary. 

When I speak to you next, I will be in Alberta.

Day 2 & 3 – Vancouver Visitations

Everyone gets up early so we can head to Langara College with Jen before her graduation ceremony. She’s worked very hard over the past year to get her ECE certification and so this is a very exciting day. We later enjoy lunch on the patio despite cloudy skies and decide to spend our afternoon biking around Stanley Park. At this point, I’m feeling exhausted from 10 hours of sleep over 2 days. Although I would love to try riding a tandem bike one day, today is not that day. My brain is not functioning properly and having to communicate extensively with my biking partner would not come easily. Despite my not so great energy to start, I had a fantastic time. We all agreed to do a second loop around the park. The rest of the evening was more or less uneventful after dropping Linda and Mathew off at the ferry. 

The next day was my girlie day with Jen. We ended up at Granville Island, a part of Vancouver I had not previously visited; also a dangerous location for someone who is trying to limit their spending to necessities. I couldn’t help but shopping, but limited what I chose to get. One particular item already seems to have sentimental value. My mom has had a stone carving for years of a mother holding a baby in her lap. I’ve always loved that statue. My interest in Africa led Jen and I into one particular gallery because it was Zimbabwean art. Interesting stuff, but nothing that I would necessarily feel compelled to purchase. Then I laid eyes on this small soapstone carving called “Mother and Child” by an artist whose name I’ve forgotten at the moment. The point is that this little carving is similar in nature to the one my mother possesses, but in a different style. It was only $20, so I couldn’t resist it because I’m leaving my mom and it will remind me both of her and something familiar and loved from home. 

Later in the evening I went out to say goodbye to one more friend. It seems the ones I have the deepest conversations with as I’m leaving them are the ones it’s been hardest to say goodbye to. I love every one of my friends immensely, but I have immediately missed a few as soon as they were out of sight. Leaving people has been far more difficult than leaving the city that has been my home for the majority of my life. I can count the things I will miss about Victoria on one hand: my mom, my friends, the ocean, the local music scene/the Zone 91.3. Silly as it may seem, I really love that radio station. Thankfully there is such a thing as online streaming. And in the case of my friends and family, Skype will be my friend… as will old fashioned letters (if Canada Post’s strike doesn’t interfere too much). I’ve become quite taken recently with The Arcade Fire’s “We Used to Wait” and with this move across the country, I will get to go back to writing letters and waiting for responses.

Day 1 - Leaving Victoria

I have barely had time to think about anything other than getting my things packed up into boxes before leaving Victoria, including packing for my trip. My habit of last-minute packing strikes again, leaving me feeling utterly tired and stressed as I prepare to leave. It only now is starting to sink in that I am really leaving. My usual ability to pack light is hampered by the fact that I am moving and require far more things (and don’t have the money to ‘shop when I get there’ as I usually do). 

Adding to my stress is the fact that the extra battery I ordered for my computer has not arrived (it does later…half an hour before I need to leave). I am waiting and also trying to cram the last of my things into my bags. As I’ve packed, I suddenly realize that if I had thought this whole thing through, I may not have gone through with it. The logistics would have made me want to give up. As it stands, it is far too late to second guess myself or turn back.

Even though I’ve started to realize what I’m actually doing, none of it prepares me for saying goodbye to my mom. What normally would be a simple “see you later” as she leaves for work now feels devastating. Later I also realize how much I am going to miss the stupid cat, unaffectionate and whiney, but I’ll miss her too.

Making it to my bus for the ferry with barely any time to spare, I struggle to get my ridiculously heavy bags onto the bus. The driver jokes, asking if I have gold bricks in there. No, just my life condensed. My best friend Jen, trying to be a good friend by offering support over text message, ends up causing me to start crying on the bus. It’s better if I don’t think about what I’m leaving behind and she’s just reminded me. I pull myself together eventually, but lose it again on the ferry. Lack of sleep and the last minute stress is not helping the situation either. I hate crying in public and yet I can’t stop myself today. 

The day eventually does get better. As we prepare to disembark from the ferry, I meet up with Linda, my friend’s sister, also on her way over to celebrate Jenny’s graduation from her ECE program. We make the mistake of following Jen’s semi-vague directions to her house. It results in an 8-block uphill hike before reaching her street and having to walk another several blocks. Normally, I couldn’t care less because I love walking, but today, with so much stuff, it is terrible. Once we arrive, all is well. Dinner by Josh, Jen’s husband, is delicious as always. Then an evening tour around Stanley Park and a bit of Vancouver for Linda, who is very unfamiliar with the city, her boyfriend and myself. We take a small hike and then some photos at Siwash Rock where Jen and Josh got engaged. 

The Idea

After reading about half of Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, I was feeling rather inspired and went out for a walk to try to sort out my thoughts. I prayed for direction, mainly thinking I wanted a physical direction for my walk. Although, what I really needed was life direction. I got a bit of both in the end.

I’ve been trying to narrow things down by remembering what it is I want the most in the world; this is where my train of thought started that night as I started to wander. What I want most: to go to Africa, to help in some way. I am also dying to visit Rwanda. Devouring every book about the genocide and survivors and killers has been an obsession of mine. So, I thought… what would be the first step to getting me closer to my goal? A closer physical proximity to the Dark Continent might be a good idea. That means going east. And if I want to spend time in Rwanda, it would behoove me to learn French first so I can better communicate with the locals. So that was the beginning: move east and learn French. Sounds simple enough, in theory. The details started to fall into place after that. After a one-hour meandering walk around Victoria on a Saturday night, I returned home with a plan: move away, learn French and find a grad school with an International Affairs program. My destination at that point was unclear. It was all a matter of where the schools were, both grad school and the French school. Strangely enough, the French school that I felt the most comfortable with after some research was one in Ottawa. And my reasons for learning French are now twofold: for Rwanda (long-term) and to prepare for a bilingual grad school program in Toronto at Glendon College (a division of York University). 

The reason for my short time-line in getting myself out of Victoria? I had promised to visit Vancouver for my best friend’s convocation ceremony in early June and thought it was the perfect time to start my journey. I save myself the return ferry trip back to Victoria and I also don’t lose the momentum and motivation from a good idea. Taking action and doing so quickly seems to have been essential. I have lately been stuck in a pattern of making plans that never come to fruition. This time I’m going to make something happen.

The Setup

My adventure began just over two weeks ago. Life was normal, if you could call being unemployed for nearly five months normal. I had no real direction post-university, making it that much harder to find work in a city that is having a serious bout of job unavailability. All the doors seemed to be closing and I knew I had to figure something out soon. Returning to school was looking more and more like the way to go. Get more credentials and maybe the job market will improve by the time I'm done. The problem is, I don’t know what to go back to school for. I am interested in so many things: architecture, graphic design, editing, writing, hell, even accounting doesn’t sound terrible to me. In any case, I was feeling pulled in several directions because I had no direction. I left my job at the library in December because I knew it was time to move on. I knew if I stayed, it would be nearly impossible to leave. I enjoyed my job, I loved the people I worked with, but I knew I wanted more for my life and would not motivate myself to find a better job unless I left myself with no other choice. Other than that, my future was wide open. 

Somewhere between there and here, I stopped listening to myself. I stopped listening to that voice that had been pointing the way before. So I started to try to listen, at the very least to narrow down my options in regards to further education. I spent an afternoon with my Bible and a pot of tea at Murchie’s and ruled out graphic design. Anything that might kill my creativity due to deadlines and business is just not an option at this point. 

That still left things way too open. Enter Donald Miller and some serious thought and a bit of prayer. My mom will probably now have a love/hate relationship with her favourite author because he helped inspire my rather spontaneous adventure. I started reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller about maybe a week before all of this fell into place. It’s all about stories. How to write a good one, and how life is similar to stories in that we can live good stories or bad stories. When you look at your life, is it an interesting story? The point at which I’ve most recently left off is about how characters (us) have to do something to live an interesting story. They have to overcome something. Fear keeps us from living good stories. Risk comes with fear. I have been lacking risks in my life lately. My life has become a terribly uninteresting story. I am setting out to change that.