CRAIG DAVID LONG

Dear Craig,

I moved far away from where I grew up. This is something I always wanted — and I’m happy where I am now… but sometimes it’s hard to be far from the people who defined my childhood. It feels strange to be a side character in their lives, stopping in to share stories and try to catch up on thousands of moments I couldn’t be there for & watching things change from a distance. Whenever I leave after seeing the people I love my heart aches a little bit & I wish I had more time with them. How can I feel close and present, even when I’m far away?

- Gone & not forgetting

Dear Gone,

Strangely, there was a time I would have said I envied you. I am your opposite. I am the person who always stayed.

There were many times throughout my life I thought about moving, but I never did.

I grew up in the suburbs of a decent sized city. By the time I was in my 20s, I was living downtown, about an hour from my family home, and was enjoying a burgeoning career in the media. But this place was a provincial town by industry standards, and even in this first chapter of my professional life, there was already a ceiling overhead. There was only so much I could achieve here; too few opportunities to grow and develop. I needed to be in a metropolis.

Between each job, I would have the same reflection. “Now is the time to make a bold move!” But each time, I pivoted my skills to a new line of work instead.

Early on, I met a local fashion stylist who was exceptionally talented at what she did. I always thought she was destined for greatness far beyond the limits of this city. As we collaborated and developed a friendship, eventually I summoned the courage to ask her, “Why did you never move to New York or Paris, where you could have had a bigger career?”

Her response struck a chord in me: “I have a single mom! Who will look after her?”

I too came from a single parent household and understood the obligation she was describing. But responsibility is only a burden if you don’t want it.

Yes, when I was young, I wanted to be the best at what I do. I wanted notoriety. But I also knew I wanted to return some of the sacrifices my mother made for me so I could have such a dream. So, this was a turning point. I would have to find acceptance in being — at best — a big fish in a small pond, like my friend and so many others in the city I came to know with similar stories.

As my life evolved from this new understanding, my aspirations did too. Success started to look different to me. I came to peace with my career trajectory and refocussed on achieving work-life balance. The more likely reality is that I would be a medium-sized fish in a medium-sized pond, and this wasn’t such a bad thing.

I found out it would allow me to prioritize aligning my work with my values, spending more quality time with loved ones, and pursuing activities in proximity with nature that wouldn’t have been possible in endless urban sprawl — a boon for my mental health.

But, from time to time, something would still yearn inside me. There was an unknowing. Who would I have become if, at any point, I had decided instead to leave this place and pursue my unadulterated, alternative, cosmopolitan self? What path would my life have taken, if I’d gone left at the fork in the road instead of right? I don’t know!

Over time, I started to notice this thinking had crept into relationship patterns, too.

In romance, I would find myself attracted to people who had ties to other cities. I would tell them early on, “Sorry, I’m firmly planted here,” — forcing my sacrifice on them, but then secretly wishing they would whisk me away to live out some exotic fantasy life with them somewhere new. Then I would have a convenient excuse more noble than career to pack my bags up and go — I did it for love!

In friendships, I would be crushed to learn when an old pal got a new job in a different city. I would crash out, lamenting their departure like a war widow. Of course I genuinely missed them, there’s no doubt, but I was also being indulgent, masquerading a bit of bitterness and envy as melancholy.

My only experience of what you describe is from the other side. No matter what, there will always be a distance. Either a physical one, between you and your loved ones. Or a psychological one, between the you you are and the you you could have become.

Ultimately, there is no right or wrong — there is only what feels most important to you internally. That instinct is the compass in life you have to follow.

You don’t really know what is going on in the minds of your friends and family back at home, either. But here’s a hint. They are probably looking on longingly, but lovingly, at your brave new life abroad. Maybe it isn’t the one they chose for themselves — but they are titillated by your adventures!

Most likely, they are happy for you, and are proud to see you thriving as a newly realized version of yourself. (Just as you so earnestly are for them!)

And these are the relationships that tend to endure, anyway, and are the ones worth nurturing. When you see eachother for who you really are, there is a closeness, regardless of near or far.

By the time we got back, the seasons had already turned. The kale bolted, flowered and went to seed. I had to rip them out by the roots and now the plot is empty. I’m not giving up on it, I’m just taking a break this year. I haven’t got any seedlings, anyway. I didn’t start them before we left and I hate asking people to tend to them while we’re gone. Maybe this is another way I can’t trust. Still, I wasn’t sure if we’d be moving again, or how far we’d end up from the garden, and whether or not I’d be able to keep it up. So I guess I just won’t grow anything this summer, even though it looks like we’re probably staying put.

At least here the temperature is fresh, the sun is out and the days now are longer. You can smell the fragrance of lilacs and wisteria in the air if you notice it carefully above the overwhelming must of concrete dust and car fumes. At dusk, I steal a few tendrils off the side of a building slated to be torn down, wondering whether it would be possible to rescue these magnificent vines before they’re demolished. Walls may crumble, but what happens to the life around them? Are the flowers buried in the debris and landfilled, sacrificed to make space for more new condos? Do they grow again, resiliently, at the dump?

There are so many now — new condos. Apparently prices are starting to fall, too, after climbing, climbing up like vines.

I keep getting reminders pushed to me as notifications: “Martine dropped the price by $50.” Why did we ever start looking? I liked that apartment because it had a large patio with a zen garden, which humoured me because it felt like a gimmick, wasted space, but also made me reflect, “Could I use more zen in my life?” Gardening was my zen, now neglected, but this presented new challenges, new opportunities that motivated me. Where would I put my jasmine? My honeysuckle? Could they creep around the stones and boulders and up the iron lattice? Would succulents grow in the sand? Or should I simply leave it bare and rake patterns into it as we sip our coffees on weekend mornings as it was designed and intended to be?

These curiosities still occupy my thoughts even though the questions are futile now. We abandoned the apartment search for good reasons. Though you’ve promised me we’ll take it up again soon, after things settle a bit, still, I am disappointed not to begin building this life together with you. I’m not sure you ever understood my long list of needs — for light, for air, for a place to put down roots — were so I could tend to you. You might say “I love you” a thousand times, which from our very first days I couldn’t readily repeat back to you. But when I cultivate a seed into a flower, and that flower into a fruit, and put that fruit on a plate and serve it to you, it is an act of love and devotion equal to a thousand I love yous. Over years, I will cultivate a fruit so juicy it will drip down your lips (the lips I love to kiss) and you’ll know I have nurtured a love so profound for you it gushes.