Today – Halloween – marks four years since my wife and I returned to live in New Brunswick. I feel compelled to reflect and share.

It feels disingenuous to say that things haven’t gone as I expected them to, because I didn’t really have explicit expectations. But I suppose it is accurate to say: my self in 2020 would be surprised with the way things have turned out.

Life since moving home has been complicated. I’ve felt loss. Sadness. Frustration.

Anger.

I don’t like how certain events have played out, but I’ve learned to accept that - while I am only in control of myself - I am in control of myself. I’ve learned not to assume responsibility for the feelings and actions of others. I’ve learned boundaries. I’ve grown. And I’ve had to accept that not everyone is interested in that growth.

I’m still figuring out who I am. And I do still catch myself thinking of “figuring out who I am” as a task that will someday be completed. That will someday become past tense, done. Checkmark. Instead, it is something that I do and then I keep doing and then one day I’ll die. And only then will “figuring out who I am” be over. But it won’t be done. It won’t be accomplished.

In 2021, I wrote about how my wife and I have largely gone where life has taken us. That has led to great adventures, but it has also carried great costs. When I wrote that in 2021, things did feel different. But change is slow. We’re more in the driver’s seat of our own lives than ever before.

If I’m being honest, some days I feel like I’ve woken up from a long dream. I look around and I don’t understand. Not confused, but I don’t understand. Where am I? How did I get here?

Maybe this is middle life. Maybe. But it doesn’t feel like a crisis – and after the last four years, I would know.

Four years in New Brunswick. The Picture Province! “Home.” A place I can’t seem to forgive.

A place to live. Because we chose to and because we continue to choose to.

Not a home that we take our place in. But a place to make our own home.