It’s almost time to go home. The fall semester is coming to a close and you’re probably booking a flight or saving up gas money. I can’t wait to go home. I’ve been obsessing over how I’m going to spend those two weeks, who I’m going to visit, and how I’m going to celebrate the new year. I’m also thinking about the things I’ll be missing in Victoria. I’m apprehensive about leaving the city.
In the city of Quesnel, my hometown, you can get anywhere in 15 minutes (if you’re determined and own a car). You will miss out on very little in Quesnel, a quiet town that barely has enough people to be called a city. Quesnel will keep you content. It has just enough stores and just enough restaurants. If you have lived there for 18 years, as I have, it will not satisfy you the way Victoria will.
I moved to Victoria because the College of New Caledonia and the University of Northern BC, while amazing and extremely valuable schools to our province, did not offer what I wanted for my degree. Quesnel did not offer what I needed for the end of my teenage years: risk.
This is the most out of my comfort zone I have been since I went to Japan the summer after grade 7, my first trip out of the country without my parents, and that was terrifying. I’m still learning to function without a parent to guide me, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Who knew eating nothing but grilled cheese sandwiches for a week could be a bad thing?
To those of you from Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver, I’ll bet Victoria seems tiny. I get it, it’s a matter of perspective. To those of us from smaller rural towns, Victoria is sort of the dream. It’s the whole package. A metropolis with more than one mall, beaches, and a world of opportunity. My life has become so full and busy here, just enough that I am always coming down from the adrenaline high of finishing an article, taking the wrong bus and getting lost, or submitting an assignment two minutes before the midnight deadline. I love it. I love the uncertainty. I could write love letters to Victoria.
I could never get lost on the bus in Quesnel. I’ve never taken the bus in Quesnel because my mom owns a car and I own a bicycle. I can draw a map of the city with exact geographic detail, street names, and the memories associated. I could write love letters to Quesnel.
I have one foot there, at home, and one here in Victoria. So I am nervous about flying home because I wonder if things will change. Will having lived on the island, having experienced the city, make my town seem less beautiful? Or will the calm, constancy of Quesnel pull me in, and make me regretful?
I sure hope not. I think that as different as my two homes are, they are both shaping me into an adult. Maybe we shouldn’t be afraid to call more than one place home and we should embrace existing in more than one space during these transitional years of my life. I am trying now to visualize my life in Victoria like a rock climbing wall (sort of like the one in UVic’s CARSA gym), and my hometown is the padded floor that I can fall to when my hands get worn out.