There is also another side to this, one that rears its head every now and again. Whether it is fleeting thoughts of, "I'd love to be at the university right now, drinking a Tim's medium double double and be surrounded by friends," or, "It'd be awesome to be at the grandparents' house, drinking a can of pop and listening to them banter," or, "Everyone speaking the same language as me would be nice," homesickness happens, and cannot necessarily be avoided. Whether you are living in a penthouse apartment in Manhattan, or a two bedroom flat in Conflans Sainte Honorine, France, when you are born and raised and mature in the same environment with the same streets and people, eventually when time comes to leave, there will be moments where the mind wanders back to those simpler times.
Before May 10, 2013, I had no idea what homesickness was like. Before then, the longest I had ever been away from Edmonton, Canada was about two weeks. It was in high school, when my dad, sister and I set forth on a journey to the United Kingdom.
My first encounter with this feeling was on Sunday, May 12, 2013. I had just moved into my apartment in the McGill Ghetto of downtown Montreal. 3620 rue Lorne Crescent. I remember having just looked up the route I would be walking to work (left at rue Prince Arthur, right at Avenue Parc, walk through Place des Arts, right at Boulevard St Laurent, left at rue Notre Dame, and the museum is on the right), and was outside my building pondering a simple question:
"Will I ever miss it here?"
I sure was missing Edmonton at that moment, and was curious if I would ever develop that longing, that love, that appreciation, for another city that wasn't where I was born or where my family lived. It seemed impossible.
Living in Montreal gave me an introduction to a whole new world. I learned how to cook, clean, and do my laundry, yes. But I also learned more valuable skills. How to build a social life from scratch. How to adapt to a new culture and language. And how to deal with those times when everything seems unfamiliar, and you sometimes want to go where everybody knows your name.
I knew in Paris, I would battle those feelings every now and again. They tend to crop up on Sundays for some reason. Maybe it is because on Sundays, I generally don't go out of my sleepy town, and often don't have any in person interaction with anyone else.
Everyone experiences it, and has their own way of coping with those feelings. Some find solace in a movie, or putting on a music playlist, or calling up home. For me, in those toughest of circumstances early on in Paris, whether it was the anxiety before my flight from Calgary or facing the prospect of being homeless for a night in the Parisien suburbs, the question that I have and already know the answer to is this:
"Do I believe in what I am here for?"
The answer to the first question, to those who know me, was a resounding yes. I miss Montreal more than Edmonton Oilers fans miss having a winning season. More than the Green Bay Packers miss Aaron Rodgers. It will always hold a special and dear place in my heart, and I will always try and visit the city during the summer. It really is the place where I grew up.
This weekend, a couple of times, I pondered the question of if I believed in what I was here for. The answer, again, is a resounding yes. For every moment I have felt lost or missing home cooking, there have been ten experiences I could not have had otherwise. Talking about life with an elder French gentleman on the train tracks. Watching a French pro hockey game. Drinking an espresso while being a stone's throw from the Eiffel Tower. Is that possible without a bit of homesickness?
My efforts have turned to summer 2014, where the possibilities are numerous. Normandy, Paris, London, Nairobi, and Montreal are all realistic and plausible options for where I may work between May and August 2014. The question I find myself thinking of now, with one more summer of global opportunities, has a bit of a different tune:
"How on Earth will I go back to living in Canada?"
À la prochaine, mes amis.
