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.