Here I am, home at last. In a whirlwind roadtrip that spanned 4 provinces last weekend, I remembered all the reasons I usually just fly to PEI. Because 6 hours on a train, 14 (not 12!) hours in a car and then a ride on a ferry across the straight makes for a long trip home. I was feeling a little sad to be missing Pride with my friends back home, but 14 hours in a car with 3 gay guys, Abba, Madonna and Red Bull and you can say you've without hesitation you've done Pride this year!
Totally worth it though, once you actually get here. And stop working. I was supposed to be off at noon on Thursday. I ended up working until 7 pm on the train. I worked all day Friday in Montreal (I was the only geek in the hair salon, one of my most favorite indulgences, working on a laptop until 5:15 pm Friday afternoon before a long weekend). Monday and Tuesday the office was closed, but Wednesday I was right back at it, working a couple of hours after lunch. Now, I know what they will tell me when I get back to the office. "You should have said no." I'm really not a workaholic, I just wouldn't have been able to enjoy my vacation until I got it all done, and that's how long it took.
Today, I actually slept till a little past 9 am and didn't even have one panic attack all day. The weather has finally agreed to cooperate and it was sunny and hot. Dad and I went to the beach in the afternoon and a show in the evening. Kicking off a trip to PEI with a night of country music is perfect. I'm sure most of my Toronto friends find this annoying, but I LOVE country music. It's a lot like me: a little too honest sometimes, a little too sad sometimes, and if you can make something tragic into a joke - go for it! My favorite song tonight was about a girl he dated and how he didn't miss her at all, but he really missed her dad. I can totally relate!
The few days I spent in Nova Scotia were great, but as it turns out, all my aunts and uncles are bad influences and in reality I probably gained 3 lbs eating the most tasty and calorie-ridden food on the planet and spent most of that time in a hungover blur. (Just kidding, they're all lovely. Any debauchery that happened was probably Brett's fault.) And if any of them ever come to Toronto, they will totally fit in at my downstairs bar.
PEI is quiet in comparison, with people actually going to work in the morning and to bed at night, but we'll tear it up this weekend at the Dixie Chicks concert. It may just be all that country music making me nostalgic, but I really do wish I could live closer to home. Not just because I miss the people (and I DO), but because I get all confused sometimes about who I am and how to merge the old in with the new. I come home and people are so relaxed, so open, so friendly. It takes me awhile to get used to smiling at people again and saying hi when we cross paths (even if they are a stranger) and letting people pull out in front of you even if you have the right of way. These are the same things that made people think I was weird when I moved to Toronto and I didn't think I would lose those parts of me. But I have and now the impatient, unfriendly, untrusting side of me has taken root and I don't like strangers, I'm in a hurry when I drive and I forgot how to smile at someone I don't know. (In other news, the ability to drive a massive 22-foot truck is apparently something you never forget, like riding a bicycle.)
I still can't imagine moving back home, but I think a lot lately about how I should probably leave the big city before it makes me "hard". It's all great to work hard and make sacrifices (like giving up a day and a half of your vacation time) for your job and then of course, you deserve your time out on the weekends, to relax at cool restaurants and bars, with your cool friends. I tend to think though, I'll never really fit into that mold and I'll always be looking for something with a bit more depth, a little more substance, something a little more like the country. After my stint in New York City, of course, next stop on the bucket list. Whatever way it turns out, I know one thing for sure: I'm flying home on Monday. : )
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