Is anybody home?

Um, it's been awhile. I had not so much as typed in the address of this blog for years up until a week ago. But, now that I have, and that so much in my life has changed, I feel compelled to compose a little update. And yet, I feel a bit intimidated, a bit embarrassed. I rarely write anything anymore, unless it's an email to a friend I haven't been good at keeping in touch with, or a briefing note for work. Yes, I do have an actual job now, a decent one that comes with a paycheque that allows me to buy fancy shoes and expensive, no-grain dog food. Yes, I have a dog now. Sigh. Where to begin. As I write this I am sitting in my bedroom, or rather, our bedroom (that has been surprising easy to get used to), in the five-bedroom house that is located in one of the very best neighborhoods in Ottawa. When I first moved to this city three years ago, I would walk my dog through this part of town, angling my head for a better look into the windows of the homes I never imagined I could own. Bella and I would trudge back to the scuzzy part of centretown where we lived, and up the steps to my co-op apartment, down the stained-carpeted hallways and past the smells of curry and Kraft Dinner smashing into each other on the third floor. Fast forward years, months and days and now I am getting married. Getting married to a pretty great guy and am living a pretty great life that somehow doesn't quite feel like mine. I spent the day pounding through a 16K run in the blazing heat that made my bones ache and my blood sing and drinking a Starbucks smoothie. I pruned my perrenials and made a quinoa-egg casserole. I mopped my floors and talked on the phone; I walked my dog and walked her again. And all of this partly for fun, but partly in an attempt to fill in the hours before he would be home. Because then the second part, the best part, of my day would begin. The part where we sit out on our deck and drink wine and laugh. The part where I feel connected, tethered to this life, to this great big rambling house with it's wonky floors and wealthy neighbors. The part where I am reminded that all of this is ok and that it makes sense. That it's mine and it's ok. And so when he said he was visiting a friend this evening and that although I was welcome that maybe...well maybe not, I was hit with an immediate and surprising sense of dread. Dread at being left in this house, this life, for hours I had not planned on, by myself. And all of a sudden it hit me just how far I had come. How far away from myself, and from my ability to look upon a Sunday evening at home alone with nothing but the radio and a tired pup at my feet, and to look upon that itinerary with contentedness.