Back at home, far from home

I returned home late last night from a week in Ontario visiting my growing family and attending my brother Andrew’s wedding. The time truly flew by, because I was alternately busy and having fun. Shannon and I made a family album, an elaborate wedding cake, and two piñatas for the ceremony, which took a lot of time, but they were well worth it. As usual when visiting Kitchener, after scheduling time for family, I hardly had a spare moment to see friends. Shannon is still in Ontario for a few more days catching up with some of those people, but I had to come back and get to work, alas. Andrew and Mandy are currently en route to their honeymoon in a campground in Newfoundland, which was nice since they drove me home and stayed the night. They’d originally planned to drive all the way to the ferry dock in Cape Breton today (16 hours), but decided to take two days instead to make the trip more pleasant, which was probably a good idea. So, after a quick crêpe breakfast and an oil change, I waved goodbye as they set off east on autoroute 40, and went back inside to return to my regularly scheduled daily existence.

As soon as they turned out the driveway, I was struck with an acute sense of melancholy. Both Shannon and I have our closest relationships with people who live in Kitchener, which we only visit every few months at most, and as much as we felt the small city atmosphere there constraining when we lived there it’s hard to leave after one of our brief stays. We have a good, although small, network of friends here in Montréal, plus Shannon’s brother, all of whom I’d really miss if we left, but at the same time it’s difficult to not see the people who mean the most to me on a regular basis. We knew what we were getting into when we moved here, and we definitely don’t regret our decision, but I’m still feeling blue. And being alone for a few days until Shannon gets back doesn’t help.

Oh, well. Back to work…