A Shout Out to all my Peeps

When we first came home in 2007, we did so to start a family. We didn't know if it would be a permanent move or not.

One of the reasons we weren't sure how long we would stay was social. Living where we do, you get pretty accustomed to your friends picking up and moving away to explore the rest of the world. Who can blame them? We did the same thing. It's just that most others don't come back. It seems they have a longer memory for the sinfully cold winters and extraordinary boredom that accompany life here. Life is slow. The drivers suck. It's not even that cost effective to live here anymore.

I digress.

To put it plainly, we were worried we wouldn't have a whole lot of friends.

Since that time, however, we have resumed our old friendships with our die-hard prairie pals, strengthened bonds with others who previously were mere acquaintances, and even made some new pals (a lot of whom are in the same position as us-- having returned from living somewhere infinitely cooler than here-- and by cooler, I mean to measure style, not temperature. Nowhere is colder than here. Don't even get me started on the fact that it is May and still snowing...).

Even in spite of becoming parents, we have been able to remain relatively social (did I mention the people we are friends with are incredibly patient and enduring?) and we're at that age where plenty of others are also deciding that 1+1=3, so where evenings of casually drinking with pals until all hours knowing you can sleep in the next day are over, the era of the playdate has just begun.

When we got an email from a friend from overseas who casually mentioned a possible future position for C at a school in another, much more temperate province, my immediate reaction was, "Sweet. Let's blow this Popsicle stand." But then I thought about all the people here and reconsidered. It really is the people who make the place.

Though, if you ask me again come the winter, I may feel differently.