And acceptance

As I mourn the loss of a city I love, I'm beginning to look forward to a new adventure.

I never intended to go to this city. But, I never intended to do a Ph.D. either. I didn't intend to become a professor. It has all just sort of happened, the way life does sometimes.

I've done big things before and accepted them more easily than this one. Why the struggle this time around?

The time in my life. I think that's why it has been so hard. I'm not a 20-something who did the traditional educational route. I went back to school at 30. So, now I'm nearing 40 and what I want - what I really need, as much as I need to breathe - is new stability in my life. I want to settle in a city and call it home. That's what this city was supposed to be for me, but just a year and a half later I'm making plans to move away.

This job is not my career, it's a stepping stone. In theory, that's great. But it's a stepping stone at a time in my life where I desperately want permanence. That's the problem.

This will be another adventure, for a couple years, and then I will come back - if not to this city, at least to this province and to a city I can call home. With a job I will stay in for the duration of my career. With a down payment for my first condo.

This is not a delay. This is the beginning of the home stretch. This new little adventure will get me where I need to go.