it’s a strange kind of limbo i find myself in these days. it feels like coasting. for the past few years i’ve had one goal after another that i was working towards, and to not have something just on the horizon feels strange. first there was moving to the uk, then getting a work permit. no sooner had i done that than j and i got engaged, so there was getting married, then the planning of the world tour, then the touring, then coming home and getting re-established.

but now that all’s been said and done, these days i just feel… aimless. yeah, i know there’s the plan for the move to canada, but that still seems so far off. and if i’m honest, i’ve avoided thinking much about it up until now.

here’s the thing about canada: i’m not ready yet. j talks about it eagerly, and as much as i do want to move, hearing him daydream about it makes my stomach knot up. to me, canada feels like the last stop: settling down, buying a house, staying put. and there are attractive qualities to that, but it also means giving up other things. freedom, and friends, ease of travel, and an element of escapism. i worry about whether it’s worth the tradeoff.

as much as i can moan about living here, it’s okay as long as i know i have the option of going somewhere else. i like keeping my options open. in a perverse way, i feel more secure knowing that i’m tied to almost nothing, because then, there is still the potential for anything – no avenues are closed to me. which makes no sense at all, but there you have it. the possibility of getting stuck someplace with no easily available exit strategy makes me claustrophobic. because what if i get there and it turns out to be a huge mistake?

i know what you’re going to say: you can always sell a house, move again, travel during your vacation time. intellectually i know all that’s true.

but there’s more than that. there’s going through letting go again. i ditched everything to move here, and even as i did it, i had no idea how much i was actually sacrificing. i don’t know if i can do that again, knowing what i know now. knowing how hard it is to rebuild a life from scratch. knowingly cast away friendships and family, for a change of scenery. or rather, i know now that i can – but i no longer know if i’m willing to. it’s just not as easy as i thought it would be.

so i avoid thinking about canada. and there are no other big goals looming in the immediate future. so i go to work, come home, pay the bills, and relax on weekends. the weeks cycle by in rapid succession, calendar ticks over rhythmically. and i go to work, come home, pay the bills, and relax on weekends. i look forward to vacation. it’s all rather desultory. i mean, i know this is what people do. this is what i used to do. i just haven’t felt this purposeless in a long while. there is no “next big thing”. more importantly, what if there never is?

it scares me to think that this could be a preview of life in canada. that settling down, staying put and being responsible means there is no “next big thing”. i’ve done desultory. i’ve been mundane. i’ve gotten up, gone to work, come home, paid the bills, and relaxed on weekends. that was my life before i came here. but i’m not ready for there to be no “next big thing”. not now, not yet.

maybe not ever.

canada – beige stationwagon

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