1 Less than 10

Nine years ago; almost this exact moment nine years ago, I took the biggest step in changing my life forever I had ever taken. It might actually be the biggest step I HAVE ever taken.

"The flight crew would like to be the first ones to welcome you to Vancouver. The local time is 10:35pm. It is 12 degrees and foggy. Thank you for flying JetsGo."

I had just spent more than 5 hours flying the Canadian airline equivalent to riding Greyhound. I had about 1/3 of my worldly possessions with me on that flight, having sent the other 2/3 out by Greyhound over the two previous weeks.

Meeting me at the domestic baggage carousel were two people. The first was my best friend whom I had not seen in more than a year and the guy I'd met online that I had been flirting with for 6 weeks or so before deciding to pack my shit and go west.

My best friend needed me, I needed out of my old life, and the contract for my job had run out. The local prospects for employment had dried up and I needed to get the fuck out of that small town I had been forced to move to in order to keep my job after my previous relationship had broken up.

I was taking the biggest risk of my entire life. I was 29. I was single. I was without hope, limited in every respect by not only what other people thought of me but by what I thought of myself. I needed to move on and to find a way to reinvent myself.

In the time honoured tradition of 18 to 30 year-old Ontarians who have no fucking clue what to do with their lives, I got on the plane to Vancouver with everything I had in the world and a couple thousand dollars in the bank. This was going to be the best thing ever.

It wasn't. But it totally wasn't the worst thing ever either. I would not be the person I am today if it weren't for getting off that plane at YVR on September 20, 2003.

The best friend isn't my best friend any more. In fact I've talked to her three times in 8 years.

I haven't spoken to the guy I met on the internet in more than 2 years, and that was the first time I'd spoken to him in 4 years before that. He disappeared off the internet in 2010 and I just have no idea where he might be.

In fact, of everyone who was in my life at the time, I don't speak to any of them. Connections lost, none of them I particularly miss. I'm pretty good with all of it.

Nine years on the Left Coast. It's been real.

Or something.