thoughts on | where you live

having my parents visit this past week meant that there was a lot of talk about where i live. for record, i live in victoria, british columbia, canada.* you can see my city in project three and project ten.

j and i moved out here a couple of years ago from ontario. luckily i had the excuse of attending school - i'm sure it's very scary to move somewhere on a whim because then you regret the decision if the place is not what you expected. i really had no idea what to expect but i knew i liked it even when we came to visit and scout out houses** a few months before driving across the country. i remember being downtown near the inner harbour and thinking "dear god, i'm actually going to get to live here??"

of course our parents want us to come home. but is that home anymore? is it home because that's where our families live? or is home where you wake up each morning and come back to each night? is home where your heart is? because it's official - my heart is in victoria and i may just leave it here if we ever have to go back to ontario.

i'll pine for victoria. i'll drive down the 403 highway from toronto to niagara and even though i'll drive next to lake ontario, and arrive at the falls, i'll regret that it's not the pacific ocean i'm looking at. and even though it will be the states on the other side, it won't be the olympic mountains rising up through the clouds and making me feel part of something bigger and grander. there won't be days where i wander downtown, buy a piece of fudge and stare at the water as it sparkles in the morning sun and the float planes land like giant insects in the harbour. i'll have drive in the winter and fear for my life instead of waiting for the bus on a misty victoria day. i can't fathom ever living somewhere that doesn't make my heart want to burst every single day with the joy i feel because of where i live. because of the beauty, the culture, the weather, the arts, and the people who are so nice and say thank-you when they get off the bus - it makes you want to weep.

but we will have to - because i basically promised that when we have kids, we will move closer to our parents. but by golly, i still have three to five years to entrench myself on the west coast before i have to worry about that...

as i told my mother - i think there are three things that affect where you live and one is so perfect and wonderful it will always outweigh the others.

one | family
two | your job
three | the place itself.

can you guess which one outweighs the others for me? what about you?



* stalkers unite! she's given us her location!
** unsuccessful at the time and scary. scary scary basement suite. luckily we found a great one a month later.