and so a year has passed

A year ago we officially moved out of the first home we ever owned and travelled 315km west to our new, temporary rental. We weren't expecting a pandemic to hit once we'd finalized the house sale, and booked our moving date, and closing date. But it happened. And so our "it's just temporary" residence, that we thought would. be short-term temporary, has been our residence for a year.

April 2020 was a back-and-forth month for us as we set up the new place, had some new furniture delivered, looked for jobs, visited my Mum. The animals moved in with us by the end of the month. It's a very weird thing to be in a new place, new city, new province, and have your home empty of animals for such a long time (when you're used to three furry creatures underfoot at all times.)

We weren't expecting this year to be so... long. Or difficult. And I know we're not nearly the only ones who have felt this way. We never expected to be job searching as long as we have, or that we wouldn't have been able to buy a new home by now. The entire year went off the rails, and it's been exhausting.

But there are good things to celebrate. For one, I have wanted to move out of Quebec for as long as I can remember, and I had always wanted to live in Ontario. Well, that's been accomplished. Our living arrangement might not be what we had hoped, or planned it would be, but we're here. And this new city we're in is wonderful. I love so much about Kingston, the pride in supporting local everything, the fact that are so many local businesses, and events, to support, and just how friendly and helpful the people are. I love being able to find small beaches with swimmable water in the summer. I love the nature trails. I love the limited amount of traffic. I love that there are no mega tall buildings and that I can see the sky. I love the veterinarian hospital we've found. I love our dog groomer.

I love that I am about 5km away from my Mum, instead of 315km from her. And yet this year has been so difficult with getting to see her. The summer was a better time for that because we could meet at the beach and sit socially distanced and whatnot. And I have seen her a few more times that I think I have, but we've pretty much stopped visiting each others' homes because of the pandemic. I moved here to be closer to her, and the way the last year has gone it's sometimes felt like I live even farther away than I did.

We weren't able to explore as much of our new location as we wanted to this past year, we've kept to places that we knew of already. And I am looking forward to post-pandemic explorations in the future. Not this year probably, but next summer? I am hoping that's an adventure year.

I don't think any of the dreams I had for 2020 are going to come true in 2021, and I admit I am feeling much more hopeless and worthless than I would like to be feeling. But I try very hard to remember that I am HAPPY with where we have moved, and I am happy that we took this chance. The timing of it all simply happened to be majorly sucky.

As we enter into yet another 6-week lock-down (or what this government considers a lock-down that isn't helpful at all), I am trying to enjoy the nicer weather and not dwell too much on what I miss (having my own backyard, a garden, no extremely loud neighbours attached to my walls, a job). After all, we're not alone in this pandemic-fuelled frustration. Also bonus is that we're really good at the isolation part of the precautions because besides my mother, we don't know anyone here. Heh.

I hope better things are on the horizon for us, and others. I didn't want to spend another summer or winter in this rental, but we have a place to live. So that's something I am thankful for. And we're actually quite happy with staying home and not going out anywhere crowded. Introverted homebodies for the win!