Song Dedication: Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac

It’s a short instalment today to include just enough for absolution.  In an hour we depart “home here” for “home there” where we lived for nearly 20 years before returning to our hometown in the North.  (funny how life works). We love our home here, we really do, we are fortunate to have wonderful family and friends here and our home is in our childhood neighbourhood.  Familiarity brings a strong sense of security.

But when you lived and made your life in another place for as long as we did, we find we are often living with a foot in both worlds.  Sometimes we have felt badly about this, like we are not giving this life now enough commitment…like being hung-up on your ex.  We also have wonderful family and friends in the other town too, so it’s hard to let go.

Each time we do a road trip to the Okanagan, we stay with my Mother-in-law and even the dog knows this as her second home.  She knows who’s bed she sleeps on at night and which door to cycle in and out of incessantly.  Our son pulls his Dad’s lego out of the closet and builds old school things with the old school instructions like 1980’s lego were completely different from lego now.  It is a lovely home and we are grateful to enjoy it when we are there, sitting on the back patio watching quail walk the fences and roof lines.

However, this past 2 weeks has been a butt-load of little white lies, in preparation for this trip.  We are in fact going this weekend to attend the Cirque de iceskating as a family, which we’ve been looking forward to since Christmas when we bought the tickets.  But this trip also just so happens to fall on my husband’s 39th birthday.

He and I had talked a few weeks ago about how or if we would try to arrange to see friends, but its always a bit of a scramble when only in town for the weekend.  The conversation was left inconclusive (which never use to happen with old Sarah – need an answer promptly Sarah, must know now Sarah to avoid the anxiety of the unknown) and so that’s where I left it, until a bit later I recognized it as an opportunity.

My husband is a very social guy who values his friendships greatly.  He had also said don’t worry about birthday presents – which always makes me feel weird. Because I personally love birthday presents.  So taking these two bits into consideration I thought, well I can honour both of these things!  I decided to arrange a surprise party, allowing the discomfort of the unknown to creep in and see how I could manage it.

Well lucky for me, things just fell into place, like perfectly.  So many people stepped up to help out – since the logistics of party planning can be tricky when you don’t live there anymore.  Between a friend offering up her home to all of us, others phone-treeing/texting out invitations, ordering of cakes and food, and the lies…not just mine either…my son’s lies, my Mother-in-law’s lies, multiple friends who have had contact with Andrew saying things like they aren’t in town that weekend to even meet up for a coffee.  The best part is almost everyone I reached out to was available for Friday night, so this put me at ease, a sign that this was meant to happen.

I am excited for my husband to receive this gift of reunion, but have been internally calm throughout this process.  He hasn’t seen many of these friends since his Dad’s Celebration of Life 2 years ago, so it will be a memorable evening for all involved.  It is also a chance for us to reconnect with our other life we moved away from nearly 5 years ago, and I recognize that we are so fortunate to have two places we call home and all the amazing people that go with them.  Sorry for the lies, but not sorry for the love of the then and now.