Leaving my 20s (and Vancouver) behind

I turned 30 this year. And then promptly packed up my entire life and moved across the country to live in my childhood home. If 13 Going on 30 taught me anything, it is that life is supposed to get better in your thirties. Thirty, flirty and thriving, right? Instead I was lonely, broke and exhausted. Being in Vancouver was beautiful and illuminating, but living alone, working alone and earning an income alone had taken a toll I hadn't expected when I first moved there. I decided to move back home and essentially start all over, with my community supporting me every step of the way.

Moving isn’t new to me. I moved away from home at 18 and just kept moving - first to England, then to Kingston, then finally Vancouver. I was in Vancouver for the majority of my 20s and learned some incredible life lessons. The biggest one being: hyper-independence keeps me stuck and isolated from community. I eventually learned to ask for help, how to be vulnerable and how to speak compassionately to myself there.

Someone asked me a few years ago how I had done so much at such a young age: I had a masters degree and started my business at 24, I was fully on my own in my studio at 27 and started teaching grad school classes at 28. And the truth is that I missed out on a lot of experiences because I felt like I needed to prove myself. I was always the helper, not the helped - not because I didn’t need help, but because I always hid behind a veneer of “I know it all”.

Something shifted in the past few years and I started to lean more into intuition, play, rest and authenticity. I didn’t want work to be my whole life and I started leaning into my friendships, community and hobbies.

I genuinely do not know what my future holds. I have done almost no planning, or applied to jobs or figured out where I am going to live. My childhood home is a soft landing place for now. I’m trying to remind myself that I don’t have to know everything and do everything for myself. That returning to your roots is not failing or giving up. That my knowledge, planning and workflow is not what defines me. I’d rather be defined by my presence and the way I love and laugh and play.

If my 20s was focused on “doing”, then let my 30s focus on simply “being”. Being scared, being present, being joyful, being a sister and an auntie and a daughter and letting my work simply be my work.