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Illustration by Alex Deadman-Wylie
Five years ago, my husband and I sold our comfortable Toronto house. We packed up what mattered, including our two reluctant, senior cats and drove across Canada for eight days to live in Victoria, Vancouver Island, population 400,000.
We left our jobs, people who mattered, and a city I love – with no soft landing at the other end. We bought our house, basically off the Internet. We put our trust in an ineffable pull we felt to live by the ocean, with the belief that it was now or never.
We recently celebrated five years in Victoria. I sit here surrounded by the timeless rhythms of the Pacific Ocean, looking at the gentle sloping mountains silhouetted against the gradient blue horizon. I’m reflecting on things like change, control and the realization that surrender is a gift you give yourself.
Change has not been easy. I got a heavy dose of “be careful what you wish for.” But has it been my friend in disguise?
The infrastructure of our life had to be rebuilt. Home. Purpose. Belonging. It really didn’t go smoothly at all.
Our home needed new concrete steps and fencing. A simple, mundane task turned into an epic hunt for a contractor, a maddening amount of local bureaucracy and a dizzying bill for the work.
After the survey pins were banged into the ground, the neighbours on each side dropped the honeymoon-phase niceties. Early one morning, one of them opened her front door and screamed at me: “You are soooooo Toronto!”
Next, it was on to purpose. Everyone here told me that you couldn’t get a job in Victoria without knowing someone. Coming from Toronto also came with a motherload of baggage. I wobbled my way through the networking events and headhunter calls, often mumbling that I was from Ontario. Never Toronto.
Within five months, we both found jobs based on our credentials without needing someone to vouch for us. I lasted in mine for a year (not the right fit); my husband landed his dream job as a photographer.
Third, we needed a sense of belonging and thank you COVID. Eight months after we arrived, lockdowns began.
It was a process of nesting, working and trying to belong. Throughout, I worked at the problems, failing many times at resolutions.
We were living on an island, for real and metaphorically.
I had my hand firmly on the rip cord. As soon as the lockdowns were over, we were pulling the parachute and heading back to Toronto.
Then I saw some subtle shifts. Every day, I walked by the ocean along Dallas Road, a gorgeous path that hugs the rocky outcrops of downtown Victoria’s coastline. Westerners walk in all sorts of weather. I admire them for their shrug-it-off attitude to the whims of climate. It’s always dramatic and nourishing and I regularly see deer, otter, seals, eagles, falcons and, once, a whale and black bear.
I also landed work. A Toronto agency that I used to hire needed some help. I took a deep breath and reached out. To my enduring gratitude, they hired me to work remotely.
That’s when I learned that it’s okay to live with your feet in two worlds: taking the best of one that makes me feel understood, while also finding refuge in the other, where the beauty, outdoors and mild winters never get old.
Video calls became the new normal. Instead of missing my lifelong friends and wishing I could find their equals here, we started monthly calls that were as soothing as my favourite bathrobe.
Tackling the in-person side was next. I met an artist. During our friendly conversation, I let myself be vulnerable in front of her. She came from Saskatchewan, her husband from Alberta, and we were invited to dinner immediately and introduced to all their friends.
I learned to let doors open at their own speed. Not everyone wanted to be my bestie right away, even though I was as needy as a golden retriever. I let things evolve as they needed to, which was still not nearly fast enough for me. Even neighbours (the ones without pitchforks) responded well when I shared my craving for connection.
As I look back on five years, I see my pattern of resistance, bargaining and gradual surrender. I see the evolution in myself.
I allowed myself to ask for help, which I rarely did before, and it was warmly offered.
I find I can live with things being okay-enough.
I’ve eased up on the gas pedal. I’m different. Good different.
This island life may not be for life, but it’s life for now.
I’m learning to roll with it, just like the waves I spend hours watching.
I don’t have everything I want, but I have a lot.
People thought we were crazy to give it all up and move to Victoria. We probably were. It was 100 per cent a leap that we didn’t spend nearly enough time thinking through.
But at our five-year “Vicversary,” we’re still here, holding on to what matters, cobbling together solutions where we see them, and letting the rest – blissfully – go.
Alison Butlin lives in Victoria.