Saturday, October 22, 2011

Living In The "In Between"

Do you feel out of synch with life? Not sure which way is up or which way is down? Have an uncomfortable feeling of not quite fitting in? Living in the “in between” stage of transition?

I lived in Calgary for seven years. I quite enjoyed living there, had great friends and a wonderful church community. I loved the beauty of the skyline –sparkling, glowing lights from the downtown area filling the night sky – and the breath taking view of the awe inspiring Rocky Mountains jutting up on the western horizon. Over the years the city became home, its threads woven into the fabric of my life; a part of me.

When I got married in June 2010 I knew I'd be leaving the city to start a new life with my husband in Stony Plain, a community just outside Edmonton three and a half hours away. He and his children lived there and our priority was to remain close to them. As is often the case, logistics interfered with life plans and I didn’t end up moving to Stony Plain until March of this year.

I travel for work and since I’ve moved I’ve experienced an odd sense of displacement. I get to the airport at the end of the week and check the departure monitor for my flight. I wonder why the flight time on the monitor differs from the one on my itinerary and am suddenly struck by the realization I’m automatically looking at Calgary flights instead of Edmonton flights. When I’m driving familiar routes through Saskatchewan I automatically point the car in the direction of Calgary, but quickly realize I need to head north to Edmonton, not west to Calgary.

This week as I drove into Calgary for work I experienced that “out of synch” feeling again. The city felt like home. After seven years of coming back to this city I was programmed to experience the feeling of being home when I got to the city limits. But another part of my brain quickly kicked in telling me this wasn’t home; my home was the house I share with my husband in Stony Plain. It was a strange sense of being pulled in two – the city of Calgary feels like home but I don’t have a home here. Our house in Stony Plain feels like home but the community around it doesn’t.

It’s an “in between” stage in the transition where old habits and feelings are weakening but new habits and connections haven’t been established yet. This odd sense of displacement is experienced in moves, in job changes and in other transitions in life where circumstances have changed but the mind hasn’t quite grasped the reality of the situation yet.

It takes time to adapt to change. I’m pleased that our house now feels like home and I hope one day when I reach the town limits of Stony Plain it too will feel as though I’ve come home.

Are you living in the “in between” stage of transition? Share your thoughts by clicking “comments” below.

No comments: