I just got back from a visit home, and I feel wistful. There’s no place like home.

I come from Nova Scotia, on Canada’s Atlantic coast, and now I live in Vancouver, on the edge of the Pacific. That’s a lot of land between myself and my family.

I came out here for the jobs, really. There’s work here, and good pay, and I have friends out here, and the city is lovely, really.
But boy, I wish that I were closer to home.

It was wonderful having my parents and my in-laws fawn over Babby. My mother would watch the baby so I could go out with old friends. My mother in law made ginger bread cookies and blueberry pie and a full turkey dinner and kept prodding us to eat more, more!

There’s a feeling of coziness, returning to the Maritimes where my family and my friends are everywhere, and everyone seems to know everybody.

On the other hand, Vancouver is very metropolitan and international, and it is beautiful. We have lovely cherry blossoms in spring, snow on the mountains, and a sushi restaurant on every corner. In some parts of the city, Caucasians are in the minority, and business signs don’t even bother using English.

But it isn’t… personal.

It’s rare to run into someone you know in a city as sprawling as Vancouver. You don’t make conversation with people on the street, unless it’s about hockey.

But, in Nova Scotia, things are different. The entire province has less than a million people; whereas, metro Vancouver has over 2 million inhabitants.

Yeah.

So, even in Halifax, with a population of 370,000, you are likely to run into someone you know. If you are outside of the big city, you’re pretty much guaranteed to run into someone you know.

I went down to the local pub to wait for a friend, and the waitress guessed who I must be waiting for. The next time I went, there was another waitress. She went to school with me.

At my in-law’s house we went wandering down to the wharf and a lobster fisherman drove up, concerned about the strangers near his stock. He recognized my husband, who hasn’t lived at home since the 1990s, and insisted on giving us a guided tour of his new lobster tank. (Lobster is everywhere in Nova Scotia, by the way. Looking for a McLobster? Look no further!)

In Nova Scotia, old ladies accost you in doughnut shops and tell you their husbands’ life history, just because your baby is cute.

Nova Scotia is a place where you see signs that congratulate “Bernice” for winning “Choice Hotel’s Woman of the Year Award.” Just “Bernice”. No last name. Who needs them?

I love it. I love all of it.

I especially love being with my family again.

If I lived closer to home, my mother could take care of my son every day while I worked, and I wouldn’t be looking for daycare right now.

But if I lived in Nova Scotia, I wouldn’t need my mother to take care of my son, because I probably wouldn’t be able to find a job at all.

You see the irony.

We seriously need a teleport machine invented pronto.

Do you live far from where you want to be? Do you wish you were closer to your family?

This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Carol from If By Yes of Vancouver, Canada.  She can be found writing at her blog, If By Yes.  

Photo credits to the author.

Carol (Canada)

Carol from If By Yes has lived in four different Canadian provinces as well as the Caribbean. Now she lives in Vancouver, working a full time job at a vet clinic, training dogs on the side, and raising her son and daughter to be good citizens of the world. Carol is known for wearing inside-out underwear, microwaving yoghurt, killing house plants, over-thinking the mundane, and pointing out grammatical errors in "Twilight". When not trying to wrestle her son down for a nap, Carol loves to read and write. Carol can also be found on her blog, If By Yes, and on Twitter @IfByYesTweets

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