So this is our final “normal” Saturday in Toronto before we move to England. “Normal” is a bit of a stretch – the house and our activities in it have not been normal for weeks. First was the chaos of prepping our house for leasing, with all the small and medium-sized renovations and fixes. Then came the eerie listing and viewing phase, in which our house took on a supernatural tidiness that was both relaxing and unsettling. Now objects and furniture are being donated, given to friends or slated for storage – there’s a big open spot in the living room where the piano once was, and we own a mere handful of books.

It’s getting easier, but I find the about-face from nesting and building a home to divesting ourselves of all but the essentials and some treasured possessions more difficult than I thought it would be – and I’m not a packrat. I kept coming across older versions of myself when I sifted through my books – my uncovering my creativity phase, my “get a handle on our finances” phase, my “buy every book ever written about writing instead of actually writing” phase, a stack of journals from my journalling phase (pages ripped out and burned in the dark of night in our backyard fire pit earlier this week), my “I’m totally going to cook all the recipes in this gorgeous cookbook” phase, my “yes, I’m really into the classics canon of literature” phase (admittedly left over from my pretentious student English Lit. self), and a smattering of other self-improvement tomes.

And I had an epiphany – the kind I think you can only have when you weigh what you actually do, and what you use, each day against your ideal version of yourself. And I said “Fuck it. I’m just going to be me from now on.”

Those phases helped shape who I am – but I realized that along the way I’ve become a quite fully realized version of myself that I actually really like – oh, I still have tons of self-esteem issues and things that I’d like to change, but if a TARDIS showed up with the me from 20 years ago, I think she’d be ok with how all her work is turning out. And, while reading a page of an old journal I realized my to-do list hasn’t altered much at all over the years:

• do yoga
• drink more water
• upgrade wardrobe
• get out of debt

So here’s to choosing adventure and a new country over stuff and possessions!