The Beginning

I’d like to touch on the story of how I ended up moving to Vancouver, and how it changed my life.

When I was growing up in a town called Belleville in Ontario, I was estranged from my Aunt and Uncle. They lived in foreign world that was approximately 4500km away from us, and through the turmoil of my difficult childhood, I didn’t get a chance to think much on it.

My father told me he’d pay for me and my younger sister to fly out to visit this place out west where they lived, but only once I’d turned 16 and was old enough to understand how to get on a plane.

The age of 16 came and went for me. By the time it had, we’d acquired dial-up internet access, so my curiosity led me to look up the details of this city. That’s when I discovered that, not only was this placed called “Vancouver” magical, it had natural beauty beyond belief. It’s snow-capped mountains and clear blue ocean were things that I’d only seen in movies. From the first time I laid eyes on the pictures of the city, I was hooked into daydreaming about it.

Writing about Vancouver as an Escape

Since my life was stressful , I started to use writing as a way of escape. It was a way to mentally take myself out of this world and put myself into one where I could control everything. The first short-story I wrote was an embarrassing little number called “Weakness” where the characters were loosely based on my favorite actors from Lord of the Rings. I submitted it as an English project, and I don’t remember getting raving reviews from my Aussie English teacher, but that little story became my first shaky step into becoming a writer.

Then, I started writing for fun after school. Following “Weakness”, I wrote a story about vampires (surprise, surprise – it was the early 2000s, but, lucky for me, this was years before “Twilight” became popular). Then, I started writing my first novel, which was set in, and inspired by, Vancouver. I was 17 at the time, and I almost had the draft finished, before my desktop computer crashed and I lost it all. (I’d neglected to use a floppy disk and will never make the same mistake again!). I cried on my bed for hours afterward, then moved on, reluctantly accepting the loss of the story forever. But I never shook it. It remained stubbornly in my head for a long time after (to this very day, in fact).

12 Years Later

Fast-forward to my late 20s in 2017. While driving home from my agonizing Quality Assurance job, I day- dreamed the first scene from that re-vamped story to life. From that evening on, I decided that I was going to completely re-write my story set in Vancouver, and I was going to publish it as a novel. (Something that I’m still working on – and I hope my blog can help!). Throwing myself into my passion, I crafted my story every evening, gaining a new love for it along the way. I was doing what research I could with photos, maps, and the street-level view in Google Maps, but it wasn’t enough.

I soon realized that I was missing the critical experience of having visited there; of having walked the streets with my own feet, seen the mountains with my own eyes, and breathed the salty air into my own lungs. So, I started deducing a plan for how I would fly out and see the magnificent city for myself. Luckily, my Aunt had now settled in Tsawwassen, and I used her as an excuse for why my younger sister should join me. After settling the details of the trip between us, we booked it for late September 2017, and, in no time, we were leaving Ontario in a plane headed west.

My first visit to Vancouver

When we landed, I remember seeing the fog rising up from the coniferous trees around YVR.. I could feel how different the land was from Ontario just through the sight of those trees. There was something comforting about it. Dark, and oddly familiar. I remember the quiet of the smaller airport and the freshness of the air as my sister and I made our way to the Skytrain. There were totem poles everywhere. I could tell that the city was engrained with the nature surrounding it; something that Ontario very much fails to do in its major cities. There was excitement rising up through the depth of my very core. I was here; in the place that I thought I’d never be able to visit. There was something very powerful and exciting about that.

I remember my first glance of the mountains as the fog began to clear, exposing them as the Skytrain turned towards the city. I’d never seen mountains before, so the sight of them in the distance brought forth shock and awe. “Brittney! Look at the mountains!”, I exclaimed to my sister, much to the annoyance of the locals on the train that took them for granted.

Encountering the Eastside

We stayed in Vancouver for a week. I ran into my first mistake a mere hour into landing in the city. I’d booked a cheap hotel on the Eastside of Downtown, and my sister and I walked from the clean streets of downtown, through the historic cobblestone streets of Gastown, and then straight into the poverty of the worst area of town.

We’d suddenly encountered Vancouver’s dark side. The state of the two-star hotel that I’d chosen and the sight of people doing heroin out on the streets sent my sister into tears. Although we walked all the way from Waterfront station, down the worst that East Hastings street has to offer, and emerged on the other side where the hotel was, no one had bothered us, save for a man asking us if we were twins. Even the cab driver, as we piled into the cab and headed back west to our new hotel (the Marriot), simply said regarding the people on the streets: “There are a lot of them, but they’re not dangerous.” I would agree with that – to a certain extent. Now that I live here I’m looking for volunteer opportunities to help the people there.

Exploring Vancouver

When we moved over to the Marriott, my sister started to relax and we began to enjoy our visit. We spent the week doing a bus tour through the city, exploring Stanley Park, visiting my Aunt in Tsawwassen, popping down to White Rock, and, of course, taking the Sea-to-Sky highway on a fantastically clear day up to Whistler. To this day that drive remains my favorite, and it had me in awe of life in the west.

As we moved through the week, I realized that it was not only the drive that gave me that feeling. It was the province as a whole. I begin to realize, very suddenly, that I was born in the wrong province and that I belonged here. I felt it viscerally, down in the depths of my heart and intuition. This must have started to show on my face, because, as we stood at Crescent Beach admiring the view my sister turned to me and rightly said, “You’re going to move here, aren’t you?”.

All Sights Set on Vancouver

As soon as I got back to Ontario, I missed the west. My thoughts began to center on how to get back there. The move was big, and intimidating, and my fear kept my from action for many years. I stayed connected by writing my novel, looking at the photos from our trip often, and planning my next trip out as a 30th birthday celebration for myself. I took that trip in the summer of 2019 – almost 2 years after my first visit – but my thoughts never strayed from my city. There were other trips that I’d taken elsewhere during that time, and I went through some life changes between the two trips, including getting back together with my ex for a short time.

Back in 2018, I’d mentally seen myself at a fork in the road; one leading to Vancouver, one leading back with my ex. Unfortunately, I took the wrong path. These were only distractions anyway. My mum and cousin joined me on the trip back to Vancouver in 2019. When we landed I felt at home once more. I had a blast touring them around like I knew the place, but by the time we went to board the plane “home” to Ontario, my mood had shifted miserable. I was leaving the place that I loved – again! – and after that, I knew the move was imminent or I was going to suffer mentally.

Uncomfortable in Ontario

I went through a steady period of depression after we got back; through 2019 and into 2020, that only got worse with the beginning of the pandemic. I’d never felt so lost in my life. I knew where my home was, but I had difficult decisions to make to get there. These included finding a job out west and breaking up with my ex (which was easier said than done, considering he was living in my apartment with the dog that we’d gotten together in late 2018).

Then, the pandemic hit and destroyed the way of life that we knew. I, like many others, was drinking too much. I had this narrative in my head that I’d never get to Vancouver anyway, so I might as well give up. It wasn’t long before I struggled with suicidal thoughts. I began to despise the city that I was living in, and the person that I’d invited back into my life. I, like many others in 2020, spiraled into a mentally dark place.

Finally, I gathered up the courage to speak to my ex about my move, and, to my surprise, he was supportive of it. He even started asking me questions about my plan that I hadn’t thought of before. We agreed to part amicably, which was for the best, but the conversation made me feel as if I were finally getting somewhere. After he moved out with our dog (now his dog alone), I started searching for jobs, and making plans. None of this came to fruition in 2020, though. I struggled with the virtual interviews, and the pandemic complicated everything beyond measure (at least, those are my excuses).

Where there is a Will, there is a Way

Finally, in December of 2020, I had a breakthrough. I caught sight of a sales coworker whose location was in British Columbia. This set off an explosive and sudden realization in my mind: Wait a minute… If people are working virtually from BC for our company, then what’s stopping me from doing the same? Afterall, I’ve been working from home full-time for almost a year… What if I just asked? What reason would they have to say no?

Just like that, I had the courage to take the first concrete step in making my move a reality. I set up a call with my manager and bravely posted the question if I could work remotely full-time. The call went well, and then we got on another call with my director to discuss it further.

I made sure to express that this was a life-dream for me, and how grateful I’d be to have support on my move. In my salaried role, I work with a great company, so I didn’t expect that they’d have a problem. I also didn’t expect the incredible support that I actually received. Within a month, I had been cleared at work to go, and that felt surreal, as well as incredibly exciting.

Making the Move

I chose my moving date – May 1st – and made a 3 month plan to land in Vancouver on that date.

The move itself came with all manner of challenges, some of which included:

• Allocating what was going and what wasn’t.
• Then deal with difficult people on Facebook marketplace.
• Packing all of the stuff going into 5 suitcases and 13 boxes
• Living with my mum and stepdad for a week before I left.
• Getting my first COVID vaccine days before we flew.

But would I take any of them back? Absolutely not! The way I see it, every challenge was a step that lead me home, so I’m grateful (even if someone off Facebook marketplace had shown up to pick up my mattress in a tiny Toyota on the day I moved out of my old apartment).

Feeling at Home for the First Time, and at Last

They say that when you’re in the wrong place the Universe will make you so unbelievably uncomfortable that you won’t be able to stay there. For me this was 100% true. I felt so incredibly out of place in Ontario that I don’t know how I endured there for so long. I now say, “I was born in the wrong province,” because I really do believe that. I’ve never encountered a place that I vibe with more than Vancouver; a place that feels so incredibly mine and so much like home. Now, I couldn’t be prouder to boast that I’m finally a Vancouverite – I am from Vancouver BC! – and I’m now so genuinely happy for the first time in my life, that I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

Not to be all “drama-queen-writer”, but I really believe that the move here has saved my life. I don’t think I would have been able to live in the state that I was in for much longer, so I’m so incredibly thankful that I did the work to get myself out here. Not only that, but I’ve now set myself up with a bright future, and I can finally live again!

So, if there is somewhere that you want to be, don’t let anything stop you! I promise you, that the results will be well worth it once you’re on the other side.

Carpe vitam!