25 years! No, not of me and Conrad (we're coming up on 25 years since we met in the new year, though). I completely forgot that last Friday marked 25 years since I moved the the US.
On August 1, 2000, I flew from Montreal to Chicago - I think I may have had a connection in Detroit or Toronto, I can't recall. I made my way from O'Hare to the Boystown neighbourhood where my friend (and former Montreal swim teammate) Medgar was living. He was at his job out in the suburbs, but it was a lovely day, so I sat with the bags I had on the lawn of his courtyard building (by coincidence, across the street from Yoshi's which came to be so important in my Chicago life), waiting for him to come home. I was going to stay with him for a handful of days until I could move into the apartment I had signed a lease for, a couple of blocks away. I was not due to start my job until August 8, and that would give me time to settle in, get to know Medgar's friends on the Smelts, and build my social network right away.
So I sat on that lush green lawn on a Chicago summer afternoon, and I wrote an 8-page letter to my Mum. It had hit me hard how very huge it must have been for her to leave the UK in the early-mid 60s and emigrate to Canada. Leaving a country and all of your relatives behind - yes, I know the US is just across the border, but it was a whole other world where I had to establish myself in so many ways. And I couldn't even fathom what lay ahead in terms of work and setting up my life - all the banking and finding dentists and doctors and getting a new driver's license and more. I could only think what a huge step it was and how very very far I felt from all my family in British Columbia, even farther than when I lived in Montreal.
Medgar came home, I think we might have gone to the pool, I think we might have had sushi. I stayed a few days with him before he foisted me off on a teammate who was going out of town and welcomed a house sitter for the rest of my time until I could move into my apartment. I lived a very modest life, making more money than I ever had before (my starting salary was $31,500) and yet having much higher expenses because of loans and the move and rent and such. Work was interesting. I soon met Courtney, who has remained a very dear friend. I had an immediate group of great friends through Medgar and the Smelts. I figured I'd be in Chicago, in the US, for about two years, then take my work experience back to Canada and have a nice little life and career in a small town somewhere.
And then I met Conrad in the January after I moved to Chicago. And everything changed.
Every time I go back to Canada, I return to the US feeling something akin to grief for a few days. Like there is so much that I have missed by being out of my country for 25 years, and so much more that I will miss. I ache sometimes to go back. Maybe one day. Having Van in our lives complicates consideration of immigration, and so my future more likely lies here in the US (though I would not be unhappy with a cooler part of the US!). So be it. I have Conrad and Van and friends and professional colleagues and a home and a career here, and it is good.
So, happy anniversary to me, belatedly. Not yet half my life in the US, but I feel certain that one day I will reach that mark and surpass it.
(That photo, by the way? From my birthday in 2001, not a photo from 2000. Me and Medgar. I don't have any photos older than that digitized and on this laptop.)
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