Ten Years North
This month marks ten years since I moved north, and I had to pause for a moment to really sit with that. How has a whole decade already gone by?
Ten years since I packed up my very full life in Vancouver and followed my heart to be with the man who is now my husband. At the time, it felt like a leap of faith. It was exciting, a little scary, and if I’m being honest, not entirely thought through. When you’re in love, logic tends to take a back seat, and I was very much in love.
Looking back now, it’s funny how many things I didn’t fully consider when I made that move. I was focused on the relationship, on building a life together, on the idea of marriage and family. I had finally gotten most of what I wanted at 38 years old, but what I didn’t think about as much was everything I was leaving behind. The city I loved and thought I would stay in long term, the version of my career I had mapped out, and the future I had quietly pictured for myself.
Over the past ten years, that reality surfaced more than once and to be honest, it still does. Not because being with my husband was ever the wrong decision. That part has never been in question because choosing him was, and still is, one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, but the life that came with that decision wasn’t exactly the one I had imagined.
On paper, I was getting everything I thought I wanted. Marriage, a family and son I adore but a life filled with love and stability.
And over time, that disconnect created some tension I had to work through and as my once close friend said to me, “you made this choice you now have to sit in it”. There were many moments of doubt, lots of resentment and questioning whether if I traded one life for another without fully understanding what that meant. How irresponsible of me.
The past decade has been full of ebbs and flows. I’ve had career highs and career pivots; periods of deep certainty and others where I questioned EVERYTHING. As we know, life is not linear and mine certainly wasn’t.
But what I see now, with a bit more perspective, is that those years of questioning were part of the process (hence the pivot, the wait, the pause, the uncomfortable-sit-in-this-space-and-really-figure-your-s**t-out phase of my life). This forced me to get honest about what mattered most, what I resisted the most and what I was willing to sacrifice to truly achieve the kind of life I wanted to build.
The truth is, I didn’t get the life I originally planned and instead I got something different, and in many ways, something better.
Some dreams came true in ways I never expected. Others quietly shifted or fell away entirely, and at the time, that felt like loss. Now it feels more like timing.
I’ve come to believe that life doesn’t unfold according to our agenda. We can plan, push, and map things out as carefully as we want, but the bigger picture often has its own timeline. Sometimes we’re given exactly what we need, just not when, where, or how we expected to receive it.
Ten years ago, I thought I was simply moving north for love…temporarily because I figured I could convince Nate that life really is better on the West Coast.
In reality, I was stepping into a life that would challenge me, shape me, frustrate me, grow me, and ultimately give me more than I ever anticipated. It just took me a little longer to see it clearly.
Which, if I’m being honest, is pretty par for the course for me.