Calgary is my New Home!

I've reached a very important point in my personal life today. I took me by complete surprise. To make clear what I'm talking about I'll have to give a bit of background.

About 7 or 8 months ago I lost my job at a factory in the small Ontario town of St Thomas. St Thomas is the type of place where you're either working at a soul crushing factory or a minimum wage fast food place. None of the options available to me seemed particularly inviting so I was faced with making a big decision.

Prior to getting fired FilmRiot had been spun off of Cambrian House and it was starting to gain momentum. I had always dreamed of being able to move out west and work at the company that I had helped to create but I needed the support of my family to make it happen.

I begged, I pleaded, I created tonnes of worst case scenarios, I made a deal with the devil and finally my wife said yes. In fact it was much easier then I thought, a little too easy as it would turn out.

As the day of the big move got closer and closer I could see that my wife was having second thoughts. It was clear that she had made the decision a little too quickly and that she wasn't fully prepared for the stress that a cross country move would bring. She started missing Ontario before we left and she began to dread the event completely.

Needless to say the actual move did not go off without a hitch. Lots of our worldly possessions got cut at the last second and travel plans changed going into the last few days. To top it off we ended up at an apartment that we had to be out of within three months.

For as hard as she tried to keep a stiff upper lip my wife was negatively effected by the whole process. Separation from friends and family weighed on her immediately as she tried to get her barrings in a city much larger than she was used to. She felt isolated and I was much too busy at the time to ease the pain for her.

Her anxiety began to manifest as an underlining hatred for everything that represented the difference between this life and the life we lived in Ontario. I do mean everything. License plates were ugly, back allies were disgusting, the weather was unbearable. All I could do was tactfully remind her that we hadn't moved to a different planet but I felt totally useless to her during this time.

Three months later. You'd think that I'd be telling you at this point that she gathered the kids and hopped on a plane back to South Western Ontario, but no. I walked in the house today to smiling faces and holiday cheer. My wife acknowledged for the first time out loud that Alberta is a beautiful province and we're extremely lucky to have the chance to live here. She wasn't exactly screaming it from the roof tops but it was something. Beyond just knowing it she now feels that our family has a future here. That's a pretty wonderful state of mind to be in where ever you are.