I’m no stranger to transitions - my life has been a rolling series of them.
I actually wonder sometimes: is it me? Am I addicted to uprooting and starting again?
In relationships, I have been a Leaver. I’ll just leave, when things get difficult— there’s someone else out there who will be better for me than whatever I just dealt with.
Career wise, I have had many incarnations. I did my bachelors as a theatre technician (lighting and sound for live spectacles) and worked in that world for a heartbeat, but in my soul I was a dancer. I completed my Bachelors and went back to school for Contemporary Dance, but was kicked out before the third year (not quite good enough, a bit too old at this point). That wouldn’t hold me back from starting my own dance company in 2010, while working in bars and restaurants alongside.
And moving house— well that’s something I’ve become an expert at.
My mother and I moved seven times when I was in elementary school. I’ll never know the real reasons, but in general, she was running away. Running away from my father, from debts, from landlords, from jobs, from evil neighbours, evil houseshares. There was always something dramatic happening with mum, that needed to be escaped. When I was five we up and moved to BC, only to be ordered to move back by the court because you can’t move away with a child when the other parent is left behind. At some point when I was elevenish, we escaped to Colorado where my uncle lived— cancelling a dance recital that was very important to me and leaving my friends behind. But that too didn’t last, and so my losses were for nothing. I was constantly changing schools, losing friends, having to make new ones— and always remaining outside of the group that had known each other for years. But that’s another (traumatic) story.
I moved from Ottawa to Toronto for university when I was turning 18. A big move towards freedom and adulthood !
My mum committed suicide two months later. While this point may seem like it doesn’t entirely belong in this post… it seems important when it comes to big transitions in my life.
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I uprooted and moved from Canada to France when I was 26. I was fed up with Toronto and with trying to make it there as a dancer and choreographer. I did two weeks packbacking in France in 2012, and instantly fell in love with the country. The vibe, the culture, the food, the wine, the history— Europe is just so much richer than Canada in soul and in life. When I came back home to Toronto, I felt depressed and knew it was time to go.
So I saved money for six months, and I moved to France. My brother and his (pregnant) partner helped me move myself, my bike, and my 19-year-old cat to a tiny apartment in Burgundy.
I left my friends, my room mates, my apartment, my job in the restaurant industry, my independent dance company, and my family in Ontario— and I changed lives. I landed in the town of Beaune— into a life of food and wine and vineyards.
I went back to studies, and became a certified sommelier— working in everything from restaurants to bistrots to castles and palaces. It was a magical (and boozy) time. After a year in Beaune, I wanted mountains and water— and a life that had other topics than just food and wine (the only things to do in Burgundy). I moved to Thonon-les-Bains for a job in a Michelin-star restaurant by Lake Geneva. Four months later I began doing what many do— living in France and working in Switzerland for three times more than a french salary.
Around 30, my job as a bar manager in Geneva created enough savings for me to open my own bar/bistrot in Thonon. I was a bar owner for 5.5 years, and created my own community around craft beer, organic wine, home-made bar snacks and live music. It was in this bar that I met Ben— he had been playing in my bar for over a year before we got together.
With the COVID insanity in 2020, I had what can only be described as an awakening— I won’t get into it. But I could no longer imagine my life in restaurants, in alcohol, in capitalism and consumerism. I seized these weird years (and an inheritance from my grandmother) to change lives once again, and do a Conversion Masters of Science in Psychology. I wanted to help people a different way than serving them a pint.
In 2023 I moved to the mountains with Ben— a new life. A new climate, landscape, career, home and the first time I had really lived with a partner. This move was a huge step.
And the thing is, none of these transitions felt particularly dramatic at the time.
I know that from the outside, my life looks like a series of sharp turns. But from the inside, it has always felt like I was walking along a path. A new road would open up before me, and I could simply walk down it instead of staying where I was.
I wasn't necessarily trying to escape the life I had. I was excited about the life I could have next.
And when I think about it that way, my history looks quite different from my mother's.
She was always running away from something. At least, that's how it felt to me as a child. I was being uprooted, and I had no choice in the matter.
As an adult, I've been the one choosing. And for the most part, I've been moving towards something.
Maybe growing up with so much change made me more comfortable with it. Maybe starting again became familiar. I don't know.
But I do know that these changes never really felt like starting over. They felt like continuing.
And now this one. The first one that feels, in some way, backwards.
With so much change, uprooting and restarting in my life, I can’t help but wonder: do I seek it? Is this what’s familiar to me?
But perhaps the pattern itself isn't the problem.
If every choice, every leaving, brings me closer to my goals, to happiness, to a life that feels right for me—then I believe they're the right choices, even if they form a pattern.
Today I feel like I'm ready to settle somewhere, while another part of me cherishes freedom and travel.
And I don't necessarily think those two desires have to contradict each other.
I believe I will settle when I find a life that truly satisfies me. Not a life without difficulties, but one I want to keep choosing.
I just hope I know when I've found it.