Hey spring, thanks for showing up. You’re right on time. I have been anticipating your arrival since, well, the start of winter. I’m so ready for you. We’re going to have the best season together. You won’t even believe the fun I have planned for us.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy winter – quite the opposite, in fact. This has been the best winter of my adult life, and I say that even though I have experienced several of the top identified stresses one can experience in their life. Seriously.
If my guts could talk, well, that would be odd, so never mind. Just know they would testify to the anxiety, because that’s where my body stores the worries. Yet they would also acknowledge that my instincts were correct to lead the charge forward, even if it meant a turbulent tummy (if you think this is TMI, you should have read last week’s column).
If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you will know that change and I have a love-hate relationship. I understand that change is inevitable. I hate that concept. Yet, I know that a “go with the flow” attitude offers one a buoyant resiliency. Well thank you, winter 2022-23 for testing my resolve. No, seriously, thank you.
In the span of three months, the Carpenter and I sold our family’s home and moved from town to the countryside to take on an existing business that fulfilled my dream to live in a historic farmhouse that I first visited years ago. I fell so in love with this property then that my husband remembers me declaring that I had found my dream home and one day I would live there. I used to visualize driving up the long, tree-lined laneway. Someday, I would tell myself. The Carpenter laughed at me then, suggesting I keep dreaming. Well, who’s laughing now Carpenter? That’s right, you, the guy plowing that laneway with every snow storm this winter.
Oddly, it’s the happiest I have seen the Carpenter since our children were born (you know, before they learned to talk back). Having recently retired from 36 years in a Toronto union, he has returned to his rural roots and fallen in love with a wood stove.
I left my full-time gig at this newspaper, which was always more than a job to me; it was a significant part of my life in this community. Thankfully, I am still a part of it. Grateful.
Obviously, this all came with financial stress and uncertainty, the mayhem of moving and down-sizing, while creatively figuring out how to succeed in this venture together. The Carpenter and I barely saw each other in our former life. One would argue that’s why we lasted (me, I would argue that). Now, we’re in this business together every day. If he wears the tool-belt around, it’ll work out just fine.
In the middle of this chaos and excitement, I lost one of my closest friends to cancer. She never got to see our new home, but she was proud of me for making this big life change. She was remarkable.
It’s been a lot to manage, but it’s been incredible, because everything around me is moving me forward. I’m ready for change. The Carpenter and I will turn hard work into dream work here, because that’s who we are together.
So, welcome spring.
Let’s get to it.
