Blink and you’ll miss it –
11 years, come and gone in a flash.
I admit, I spent a lot of it ruminating on what I imagined could have been.
What if I had found a way to stay in Vancouver?
But it had seemed unattainable at the time – an insurmountable dilemma that I couldn’t imagine carried an actual solution. So I resigned myself, and tried really hard – like really hard – to want something different instead. I dug in, and I committed. And, I think I had to get what I’d always been told I was supposed to want.
I know me – I’m a pain.
There was gonna be no cure to my fascination with a version of myself who was happy in a life that pleased everybody. Where I upheld all the standards and expectations, and still got what I wanted out of it. I wanted to believe that would be the thing that “fixed me”. The thing that forced me to settle my restless, wandering soul. If nothing else – I had to see backstage – to see how it all worked, and to get out of the audience. I had to find out for myself that none of it was what I thought I would be. I think somewhere… in the recesses of all the things I buried… I always knew that to be true.
I always knew I was not meant for any of it.
Just had to see it for myself. But once I did-
In no time, I found myself on a plane. Then a new city. Then right back where I started… where I had nothing to do but rebuild myself and remember who I was. I had my own place, two cats that fate had shuffled my way, and a job that I loved, despite how crazy it made me. Little by little, I stitched myself back into a whole person (while of course finding all kinds of fun, creative new ways to make mistakes and learn the hard way). Which is where I was, and what I was doing, when an enormous and unforeseen plot twist smacked me square in the face.
Life had already carried me so far – down quite a few chaotic and twisty paths – some harrowing adventures in the midst of some unexpected situations. Sometimes I was the product of shifting sands, sometimes I was the catalyst for them. And somehow, despite all I had learned to the contrary, I’d allowed myself to be on the verge of believing nothing could surprise me anymore.
That’s when Change – in her most colossal, seismic action yet- rerouted me back to Someone. Someone I was always excited to talk to.
Someone I was always excited to laugh with.
Someone I was always excited to nerd out with, vent with, reminisce with, theorycraft with, and create with.
Someone I had never not been missing.
And – I had been rerouted to Somewhere.
Beautiful British Columbia.
Which I had also, never not been missing.
Vancouver… This gorgeous, magical city, tucked away in the Pacific Northwest… at the seat of the mountains and in the arms of the sea. When I lived here before, the very first thing that would cross my mind as my eyelids first blinked themselves open was the sheer weight of my wonder. I couldn’t believe where I was living. I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was, in all weather and from every angle. And at the moment the city lights, the mountains, the ocean – all rolled into sight from the window of the plane, I felt my body heave a giant sigh of relief.
And I realized-
This is exactly how things had to unfold.
I had to leave.
So I could sort myself out, and then come back.
But, holy shit.
The wonder, the lessons and revelations have all been plentiful, yet the words have not. Much as I’ve been dying to get it all out, I have to be honest; It’s been a struggle to sit down and lock in to begin telling this story. Because this story is just so many things.
On one hand, it is a story that spans more than a decade, two countries, many miles (kilometers) of two people winding their way both towards, and away from each other more than once.
It’s also a story that tells the classic and foundational tale of friends to lovers.
And still yet, it is a story made up of countless smaller stories-
So many words written and lines sketched, and hundreds-if-not-thousands of hours logged in long-distance co-movie watching, and phone calls and who-could-guess how many pictures and articles and memes exchanged. Stories of boxes taped, and suitcases packed, and endless trips to cars, and multiple airports, and traveling on planes with two (very drugged) cats, and countless hours of planning in between.
But perhaps most exciting, are all of these new stories still actively being written.
The ones made from living a full life alongside your very best friend.
Stories of holding hands everywhere, trips and adventures, meeting friends, family time, eating so much food, cuddling cats, constant bits, movie nights (though now, the in-person kind – whether at home or in theaters). Stories about the radical addiction you can form to making someone laugh, and stories about realizing that person is the ONLY other person on the planet who speaks exactly the same language, in the same dialect and tone, with the same accent as you. The person who gets you completely. And always has.
It’s become so rare that I ever find myself truly at a loss for words, but telling this story has haunted me.
How can I possibly do justice to this tale?
What collection of sentences do I string together to describe what this journey has felt like?
The ineffable alchemy my brain has undergone – even in just the last month?
It all has felt impossible. That I could somehow gather all my gratitude, and contentment, and awe, and LOVE, into my arms and somehow adequately translate it here?
But as I walked home the other day – a bag of groceries on my shoulder, and a bag of gummy worms in my hand… I couldn’t believe where I was. I couldn’t get over how lucky I felt. The surrealness of it all. It’s almost so infathomable, I would have a hard time believing it all if I were anybody else.
And I could feel it all starting to spill out of me.
I suspect it will continue – as Time does what she does, and moves us all forward.
The words will come.
The stories will need writing.
I will be here.
I just had to start somewhere.
I continue to be baffled at times by what I really want, or envision this to be. But I think the last year has been a good reminder that all I really want to do – all the time, day and night – is absorb, and create, and tell stories. And maybe that’s all this needs to be – a place to do that with my own.
(Also, the credit for the title goes entirely to Dylan – my other/taller half, whose skill for combining the hilarious and profound is unrivaled, and it was everything I needed it to be.
As usual.)
MV
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