A house is not a home

The night before I bid my final adieu to Calgary, I blogged. Children, if there's one thing I can teach you here, it's that you should never blog when emotions run high. You mostly shouldn't do anything when you're super on edge about something, it mostly ends badly. In my case, it ended in a borderline emo post about losing my home. Now that I'm back in Montreal, I've had a few days to let the dust settle, and I'm ready to write what I should have written.

It really has been ten years since I moved to Calgary. Having gone to summer camps in English when I spoke/understood little had already accustomed me a bit to being taken out of my comfort zone (and totally developed my miming skills to the max!), but Calgary was a whole other thing. It took us three days to drive there, five months for our house to be built, and four years before my French accent was indistinguishable.

At first, I hated our house. I wish I had pictures of our house in La Sarre to show you all, you would understand why. Our new house was smaller and all the houses on the block looked the same. Ew. But of course, once I left for university, I realized how much I loved my house, my home. You don't realize you care about something until it's taken away. Ain't it the truth, kids. Anyways, I left my house slash home and moved to Montreal for McGill (where I knew no one). I worked like crazy (and cried all the tears in my body) to switch into engineering. I got in despite not making the grade cutoff (yay for social skills). I feel like everyday I've had to make daring decisions, bold moves, and kinda hope for the best. And along the way I thought my fearlessness came from having such a stable little home.

It's like in the movies, when the girls have their little quarter-life crisis, or they're in crazy financial debt, or they lost the love of their life, or they wanna be 13 and not 30 anymore. What do they do? THEY RUN HOME. So, I was left wondering, where am I gonna run to when I fall flat on my face?

Well, in the three days where I clearly acquired immense wisdom, I figured it out. An epiphany. (I had help.)

Maybe it's not about where I'll run to, but more who I'll run to. Yes I have tons of memories in that house and in other places in Calgary. But my memories shouldn't be invested in where things took place, but more with who I did what. Really who cares about my room. Yes it's gorgeous and I spent a lot of time redoing it, but my memories are actually in the garage when Amanda taught me to use a staple gun (not a pretty sight). Or driving with her to find wallpaper. The point is, Amanda's still alive. No one passed away, so I don't need to mourn. I just need to be a little less focused on the materialism and more on the people who I have great memories with. So in my actual (much less emo, right!) final goodbye to Calgary, I want to thank all those near and dear to me. Because you made me the strong person I am now, and without your support I wouldn't be here!

A house is not a home. But my home isn't a house, it resides in the hearts of those I love.