Today marks the first day of my 6th year of living in Vancouver. Sometimes this is hard to imagine, but it is true nonetheless.

I formally had an address here as of the first of December in 2001, and spent a few days here but it was Christmas Day that I crossed the border in my overflowing Jeep Cherokee and officially called Vancouver home. I walked through the door at about 9:00 at night, and was greeted by a smile warmer than anything I’d ever seen, and a hug that I’d been waiting for since leaving Billings, Montana at 4:30 in the morning. I drove almost 1,600km that day alone. It was worth it.

It’s been a long, and occasionally hard, 5 years. In this time I have:

• Had 5 fairly normal jobs, and a tonne of freelance work. 2 of those “normal” jobs have been with companies that have subsequently gone bankrupt
• Gotten married, divorced, and had one subsequent relationship of just over a year
• Bought a house, and lost everything when it was taken away from me
• Tried to reconnect with my father, only to discover that he is actually much worse than I ever thought he could be
• Traveled almost every road in British Columbia, with the exception of the north end of Vancouver Island and roads that lead to the northwest end of the Province.
• Taken a cruise to Alaska, driven the California coast and been too Yosemite National Park, Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Olympic National Park and a virtually uncountable number of smaller parks
• Traded my old Canon FD equipment in for a extensive collection of Canon EOS gear, with which I continue to try to produce high quality work
• Learned to ride a motorcycle (and logged over 5,000km on a 1982 Yamaha Virago XV750, and flown a Piper Cub
• Watched the sun set over the pacific ocean from the western shore of Vancouver Island in Pacific Rim National Park, hiked to Alpine lakes of asonishing beauty and watched the moon rise, seen more Herons than I can possibly remember at this point, and generally spent more time in the wild than I ever did living in Toronto

All of this has been amazing, and wonderful, and I have had the good fortune of sharing a lot of this with people I have loved and treasured, some new and some old; some now gone, and some still here.

Of these 5 years, the last 2 have been the hardest with personal events throwing my life into turmoil that I couldn’t have imagined, and uncertainty that I could not have anticipated. The last month has been different, and I feel like for the first time since 2003 I have solid ground under my feet, and for the first time since living in Vancouver I feel like I’m with a company that is solidly established and have a job that has a future that could last another 5 years.

I can’t wait until 2011.

Posted by skooter at 5:22 PM This entry is filed under Vancouver.
This entry is tagged: Travel, Vancouver