Weary pondering

I probably shouldn't write when I'm tired but certain inhibitions are not present at such times and perhaps some truth will come out amid the weary pondering. Pondering. Sounds like something to do with a garden water feature. Say it lots of times and it becomes a new word entirely. Ponder ponder ponder. A person fascinated with ponds. A person who creates water features. A person who cleans out said water features. I'm not even going to bother looking up the real meaning. Let's stick with the false interpretation and go with that since it makes for light entertainment. Rather like contemporary news programmes, she says, cynically. Now that's taken things down a completely different track that I won't continue to pursue :)

Weary musings. It's all about Canada right now, and indeed has been for the last 4 years. If I track my serious motivations towards this country it all began in 2004 when I was bored of going nowhere at work, having to fly a desk instead of a plane or balloon and wanted some kind of release. I'd always put my life on hold in pursuit of aviation related activities and after many years of no success in that area I decided to see what else the world could offer. Thanks to a colleague who ran a travel consultancy and training establishment (alongside her day job in HR with me) the prospect of travelling became more accessible and I began to look for ways to escape the UK. I looked at Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Greece before remembering that my family had great friends in Canada who could potentially be willing hosts. I looked up flights to Calgary and they were relatively inexpensive to what I was anticipating. I wrote to my friends and thus began the re-ignition of a long term friendship and connection with Canada. Within a couple of months I had booked the flights, and later booked a rental car and a month before departure on the first 2 week holiday I had booked the hostels for our mountain escapade. I say "our" because 2 of my cousins came with me and became the best travel companions anyone could ask for.

Barely a week into the trip I realised that this was not the end of my Canadian adventure and a deeper calling beckoned me to return for a longer stay, perhaps get a job and experience living and working in Canada. The prospect was thrilling and also a little terrifying; I recall feeling sick to my stomach with excited apprehension. This was a big step. Would I be able to cope so far from home, away from familiarity, taking my first steps of true independence in one giant leap across the Atlantic? Being dropped off at the airport for our return back to the UK I felt a deep sadness that I would be leaving this stunning country and these wonderful people who I'd only just got to know. It brought a lump into my throat and on that flight I vowed I would return. Canada became my motivation, energising me, seeing me through the bad times at work, giving me hope beyond the crises of my failure at becoming a balloon pilot and allowing me to focus on something other than aviation for the first time in my life.

I did achieve that independence that had scared me on first acknowledging its possibility. I returned to Canada less than a year later and begun a whole new life working in retail, making new friends, discovering more about myself and about God. It was the release I needed. It was more than just a gap year. It was a turning point. For once in my life I could discover who I really was beyond the confines of the aviation-crazy girl everyone had come to know back in England. Few people actually knew about my aviation exploits prior to coming to Canada. In fact few people ever bothered to ask what I did before Canada. It was as if my life had only just begun and I embraced this new outlook and embarked on my new pioneering life. Here was where I could identify with Laura Ingalls Wilder in her pursuit of adventure, going into the unknown West, the new frontier.

But this came at a price. The more I was there, the more I forgot about my life before Canada. I began to take it for granted what a privilege it was to be there. The challenges of daily life took over. I never wanted to think of life back in England in case I discovered how homesick I could really be. So I buried myself in work to avoid it. I became increasingly workaholic. My relationships became too co-dependent. My life before Canada didn't seem to matter to my new friends and so it became irrelevant to me. But in severing this part of my life I lost a huge part of who I was. I became Mim the Youth Worker, the Assistant Manager, the Brit at Christian Publications (the bookstore I worked at). I forgot that I was Mim the Adventurer, the pilgrim, the one whom God loves, the one with roots back home and a wonderful 26 years of history prior to Canada. I feared losing Canada because this had made me who I thought I was. I had begun to dig roots there and was fearful of losing them - and yet it was always going to be a temporary thing; a season. I had convinced myself that somehow I could stay - that all the wonderful things I had contributed to life there would entitle me to be a part of its future. I had invested so much there after all. But it was a false reality and soon the true reality sunk in. I would have to go home. Canada, while wonderful, enchanting, hospitable, and homey was not my home.

Flattered by people's desire to keep me there, and their grief at my anticipated departure I convinced myself that I would not leave them for long, that I would return soon. Canada had become so much a part of me that I could not bear to think that I did not belong. Again - a false reality. Sure, a part of me belongs there but it is not all and everything to me. I did not realise it then, and indeed in the months to follow after my return home I still felt as though I had lost a huge part of me and grieved for it bitterly. It wasn't until I had got to a point of total surrender at the feet of God where I felt stripped bare of everything I had ever done - all the achievements, the ministries, the things I held so dear, the times of glory and of struggle all laid at the feet of the One who has been with me - that I realised what it was that really mattered and how far off track I had gotten. It didn't matter where I went or who I met or who believed or didn't believe in me. What mattered was who I am in Christ, that I belonged to Him and that in this knowledge I need not strive for anything - for status, for independence, for happiness, for satisfaction. In Him I have my being, my belonging, my identity, my focus and my life.

Suddenly Canada shrank before my eyes. Aviation shrank. All the things I held dear diminished. And yet I grew. The Spirit took over and peace reigned in my heart once more.

And then a world of opportunities opened up before me, as though I had the choice of anything - anything at all - and it could be done. I could go to Ethiopia to visit my brother and his family (something I should've done some time ago), I could visit my sister in Northern Ireland, I could even travel across the world to Australia if this was where I should be. But first Canada. The pendulum seems to have swung the other way now to the point that I sometimes resent it - or at least resent the hold it had on me for so long to the point of self denial. I know I must return and put some closure on it, resolve to go back with an open mind and a stronger will to resist the dissolving effect it has on my personality. I am not there to assimilate. I am not Canadian. I am British. I am Me. I do what I do and I think what I think. It seems sad that the pendulum had to swing so far in the opposite direction. Perhaps this visit will settle it in the middle somewhere.

I regret allowing the false reality of a permanent existence in Canada to take hold and for so long. I listened to people who did not know the true reality of my nomadic existence and allowed their attachment to me to influence my judgment of reality. I resented anyone who reminded me of the fact that at some point I had to go home to England, that I was really an outsider (something so painful to me!). I returned home and remained an outsider because I could not let go of my Canadian existence. That was the hardest part. Being an outsider in your own home and country. But this time will be different. I am aware of my boundaries and sense that the journey is a short one, and even if it isn't and I return once more to the life I became so fond of in Canada I enter with an open mind, my eyes open and my feet firmly on Solid Ground.

Musings over :)