A Week In Review

I did four things differently last week.

1. I wrote every single day. I worked on blogs. I worked on a couple of longer/larger works I've been kicking around.
2. I turned off the notifications on my smartphone except for the ringer. I went from 8 AM Monday, August 4 to 8AM Monday, August 11 without being signaled by my phone. I only used it to answer calls or respond to messages (Hangouts, SMS) sent directly to me.
3.  From 10 PM Friday night to 10 PM Saturday night I did not use technology. My smartphone was off. My laptop was off. If I owned a TV it too would have been off. I went "No screens" for 24 hours.
4. I started x-stitching again. I'm using someone else's pattern to get my hands/fingers nimble again, but I will start creating new patterns next month.

So what does this all mean?

     a)  It means that my brain is less foggy.
     b)  It means that I both appreciate and respect the screens in my life a little more.
     c)  It means I got a METRIC SHIT TONNE done around the house.
     d)  I really enjoy stitching swear words and odd things into fabric.

Ultimately, this is what I learned:

1. My brain, some days, is not as broken as I think it is.
2. My Pavlovian response to my smartphone notifications isn't strong. That's actually a surprise. But I appreciate what they do for me to make my life easier and respect the fact they can also allow me to fuck up my day fast and efficiently.
3. I require 7 hours sleep to properly recover from a day of light activity. I require 9-10 hours sleep to properly recover from a day of heavy lifting and physical activity. This helps me with my time management more than I can possibly explain.
4. I really, really like to swear. A lot. Like as much as I love coffee and baked goods, I love to swear.
5. I really love lists, too.

Home

"Oh, so you're going back home!"

I've heard this a lot lately. We're moving back to Ontario, yes. And I guess if the province that issued your birth certificate is home, then yes, I am moving back there.

I'm moving to a place I've never really been. It's a place I've driven through a couple of times on my way somewhere else. Our time there could be a short as 12 months. It does not feel like I am going home.

The last two times I visited the town I was born and raised, it didn't feel like home either. I haven't lived there at all in 13 years. I haven't lived close to it in almost 10. Just because I will be close enough to visit more regularly doesn't make it feel any more like home.

I rarely refer to my parent's house as "home", even though they still live in the house they brought me home from the hospital to. I haven't lived there in almost 25 years. I've been gone a decade more than the total amount of time that I live there, just about. It's not just not home.

I don't think we'll stay where we are going for much longer than 18 months unless there's an amazing offer for Joe at the end of his schooling. So I don't think it will end up feeling like home either.

Vancouver used to feel like home, but only when I wasn't here. When I was visiting somewhere else, it was the place I wanted to get "home" to. But when I was here, it felt like the place I rented an apartment.

With every employer that never called us back, and with every interview that ended in rejection, it started to feel like the place that didn't want us.

With every report about real estate that we would never afford, lifestyle choices we didn't want, activities we weren't interested in, and neighbourhoods being gentrified into major label blandness, it became a place we didn't want to be.

But what I do know is that my home is with my love. It's not a building, or a city, or a country. It's with him. And given how we've made it through some amazing things, home is going to continue to be with him.