Claire and Cindy, cheeky aunties

Annie, Emma and Sara looking badass if you ask me

Elspeth and Andy

It's been almost a year since Alex and I got married on the bridge in Wakefield amongst most of our closest relatives and friends. We'd kind of overlooking our anniversary until about yesterday. It was swept up in other things: working, Father's Day (I've suddenly got TWO fathers to appreciate on Sunday and in one town, too), and maybe a bit of indifference on both of our parts. But we love the excuse to dress up and go out, so we usually succumb to such events. Our approach to our wedding was somewhat similar. It was swept up in the anticipation of the birth of our first child, in forty hour work weeks, and, well, some indifference. Neither of us felt like a wedding would represent much that we hadn't already vowed or knew or believed in. But as we started planning a little tiny ceremony it grew as we realized for reasons we probably didn't really understand that it was important to have a wedding. I don't think I fully understood why we were getting married until after our wedding, although I did think about it a lot before hand. I didn't want to speak empty words to Alex up there on the altar, I mean, bridge planks. But I think the wedding was less for us as a couple as it was for us as family. Not just Alex, me and Sebastian-the-fetus, but for everyone. There was something really nice in our love and commitment to each other being openly supported, acknowledged and celebrated by those who attended. I think it was the enthusiasm of our family and friends that really made the wedding special. When they got wind of a wedding (which I think we originally imagined with one or two Montreal friends at City Hall or something) they insisted on being there. I realized it was as important to them to bless us into this union as it was for us to let them. I'll never forget how my childhood friends Annie and Emma came (somewhat last minute) from Europe and Vancouver and how my beautiful aunties came (even more last minute) from BC, or how my mother-in-law graciously planned and hosted the entire reception. So this year I'm looking forward to spend some time just with Alex, a calmer, less distracted acknowledgment of our marriage than last year. And on Sunday, our anniversary, Father's Day, we'll naturally be all together, the way it should be. 

I'm feeling really blessed these days. I look around and see everyone at different stages of their journeys and can recognize the amount of work that still needs to be done, but overall this seems like a prosperous time. I love seeing the hardships finally pay off in my friends life, to see people cycle back into gain. Sometimes the universe seems like its crumbling for so long and we work and work and work to keep it together or make some sense of it, and eventually all that hard work comes together and the benefit is incredible. I believe the pay-off is best when we've worked our asses off to get there, and looking around I'm proud of everyone's endurance. Elsepth has conquered the restaurant world with a stage at Joe Beef with various doors opening after moving to Montreal two years ago as a bit of a notorious wanderer, a timid Anglo and a dishwasher in a drama-filled restaurant. Andy is almost done his MA at Concordia, had his debut story published in the Matrix and seems to have found a real niche with fellow writers and intellects. Julia and Greg are a beautiful family and have concrete proof in Olive that they're doing a wonderful job and should have more babies! Fabienne is finally enjoying Montreal, is making amazing fabrics and projects at her textiles school and just got a long-coveted job at the Musee des Beaux-Arts. Annie has shed the confines of the London School of Economics and is tackling journalism at Ryerson, and I know she will be an amazing documentary maker.
I'm proud of my own endurance as well. This has been a really hard and strange year and a half for me, as I've said many times before. When I think of the state I was in this time last year I'm amazed with the contrast. We're so rich these days, spoiled with all of these full-time family days while Alex isn't working, having so little stress to distract us from just loving each other and being their for each other, giving Sebastian all the patience and attention that he needs, taking time to write and be with our friends. I also received my acceptance to the MFA program at the University of British Columbia this week which was a huge relief and I'm flooded with motivation to make the most of this opportunity for myself and my family. I worked really hard on my portfolio, and my undergrad degree, and feel a definite shift towards my opinions of university. During my undergrad, at the worst of times, when I had to take any courses aside from writing workshops I generally felt like just getting through it, didn't connect to most of the content and didn't feel like I could balance my personal life with what was expected of me as a student. There were a lot of great times and I certainly don't regret my time at university but I am aware of a lot of missed opportunity, and also a lot of wasted time on topics that I really didn't care about. Now I finally get to return to the aspects that I loved about university and won't need to water them down with extraneous obligations. This isn't about getting a degree anymore, it's about writing and I really feel ready for that challenge.
I catch myself thinking about Alex's place in all this a lot. I often ask him how he's feeling about the move, and always it's the same shrug and neutral, "Good." He says he's excited about the move in a lot of ways, but is also sad to leave Andy, his brothers and his parents. Alex has an amazing ability to be optimistic and accepting of any situation. He's incredibly easy-going and patient, and although sometimes I feel like I deserve this move to BC because I've sacrificed a lot in the last two years for him, I also realize that it's not about me or him anymore. It's about us. I have watched Alex go through so many challenges this year, many great, many not so great. He never stopped working at what needed to be done. He's become more outgoing and sociable and tackled some big projects while we've been in Montreal. Montreal has done a lot of good for him, so it's hard to say, "This isn't working for me." It's hard to be the one to steer us in another direction when I'm not sure what he will find in that direction. I think Alex has some more work to do, and I alone find that daunting. I imagine he feels it's daunting, too. His main ambition is always writing, and I think it always will be, and as a consequence having a job that detracts time from this is endlessly frustrating. I don't know what direction he'll go in. I hardly know that of myself, but luckily I have an opportunity to figure it out while investing in something bigger at UBC. I hope that he finds something that fulfills him soon because he really deserves it.