It’s Christmas today. For most people the day is one spent with family and loved ones reminiscing about the year that’s past. For me Christmas always marks an extra anniversary: the end of a long drive from Toronto when I crossed the border at the Peace Arch and moved here.

It was ten years ago today that I did that. I’m starting to write this at 7 p.m., and probably by the time it’s done it will be about 9:30 which is about the time I arrive…home…that day. I’d actually flown out for a weekend earlier in the month so I’d already been there, but there was something different about this arrival. This time when the border guard asked “Where do you live, sir?” (for they are unflaggingly polite, unless given a reason) I answered “Vancouver.” It felt right.

It’s been a long and interesting ten years. Looking back it’s hard to remember the person I was when I moved here, in that existential way that we become different people as we move through life. I often joke that I moved out here for a girl and it’s true, in its way. I was living with a woman I loved and she had a career opportunity that was worth pursuing. My work at the time was done remotely by phone and online anyway, so the move wasn’t too disruptive. I followed the girl, and even pushed her a little to make the move because she wouldn’t have done it without encouragement.

Ten years later, five or six addresses, a marriage, a divorce and many girls later I’m still here. Sometimes I wonder how it happened. No too often, but sometimes.

Vancouver is home for me now. Toronto—the only other city I’ve truly lived in, though there have been brief stays elsewhere—has faded from me. When I visit, the geography of the city has changed enough to be unfamiliar to me. I still know it, but not the way I used too: the ROM has a new edifice that I dislike, the AGO has a beautiful addition designed by Frank Gehry, the University of Toronto’s campus has changed, the home I grew up in is no longer the one my mother lives in and the neighbourhoods I visit aren’t the same ones they used to be.

I visit sporadically, but I visit because there are people I miss not places. James and Richard and Jamil, who are like brothers to me. I go long periods without seeing them but when we finally do see each other those periods don’t matter. I have no friends like these in Vancouver, and I probably never will: I’ve known those three since we were in Grade Five together. These are friendships that took time to develop.

I don’t miss Toronto, I miss the people.

I have a Grandmother who lives near Toronto, and thinking about her always makes me sad. Her health isn’t good and my last visit to Toronto was prompted by an expectation that she would pass away. She didn’t (she’s a tough old broad) but it will probably be the last time I see her. Age has been unkind to her in the last few years, and I’d like to think she knew that I was there but I can’t be sure. I think she did.

My Grandfather passed away a long time ago, and I’ve missed him every day since. He bought me my first camera and there is a part of him in every photo I’ve ever taken. I think he’d be proud of some of them. He would have loved it in Vancouver, and I would have loved to explore the area with him, our cameras in hand. I have the last camera he ever gave me and it’s one of my most prized possessions.

I have a Grandmother and Grandfather in Vancouver as well, and age hasn’t been any kinder to them in the last few years. To be honest I didn’t expect either one of them to still be alive ten years after I got here: I’m glad they are, though I haven’t seen them in a while. They live rather far from here, and I no longer own a car. It’s a challenge.

Vancouver has changed in the last ten years as much—perhaps more so—than Toronto has, and I’ve changed along with it. Last year’s Olympics had a dramatic effect of course but there have been other more subtle changes along the way. I’ve watched tall towers being erected downtown at an incredible pace and the I’ve moved four or five times into drastically different neighbourhoods, giving me an appreciation for the city’s diversity that I didn’t have when I moved here.

I’ve made and lost friends in those ten years, too many to remember. The last year has been a particularly good one for new connections. I moved a couple of times and with each of those moves things have changed. There are many people who’ve made the last year a great one and I hesitate to name them lest I forget a few. I trust that they know who they are and that they know how much I appreciate the role that they’ve played in my life in a year that has been at times immensely challenging and at times immensely rewarding.

I’ve explored up and down the coast I live on now. I’ve traveled through Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, and (of course) California. This home of mine has been good to me. It’s offered my camera and I the opportunity to see things I only imagined when I lived in Toronto. The words canyon and chasm and valley and mountain are part of my daily vernacular in a way they never were before. I’ve traveled by car, by train, by motorcycle and by bicycle. I’m hoping to spend ten more years doing the same. There are people I’ve met and places I’ve been that I’d like to see again.

It’s been ten years today since I moved to Vancouver. I’d like to thank the people who’ve made the last ten years special. I’d like to apologize to the people I’ve disappointed or let down in those ten years. I’d like to spend the next ten years trying to do better.

It was ten years ago today I called Vancouver home for the first time. It’s been a great ten years.

Posted by skooter at 2:54 AM This entry is filed under Narcicism, Vancouver.
This entry is tagged: Friends, Narcicism, Vancouver