storytime – galimaufry.com

Moving to Canada, Part Deux: How I Moved to Canada

Conducting a job hunt and planning a move with an unknown destination is the natural domain of someone in their early 20’s, fresh out of college (or sooner – people who don’t do post-secondary certainly fall in here too.) At that age and in that life stage, you simply don’t have a lot of ‘stuff’ to manage, your interests are already mobile (or can be mobilized quickly,) and as a result you’re able to “go with the flow” fairly easily even though it might not feel like it sometimes.

At the end of September 2021 I was 40 years old, with a full household of stuff to account for, having lived on my own with two kids for nearly 10 years, embarking on a mid-career job hunt and move that would take me at least across the US and possibly across an international border, during a global pandemic, with no way to know for sure how long it would last.

How does one even begin to PACK for this sort of thing?

What I could put in storage and move later depended on where I’d be going, what I’d need with me also depended on where I’d be going and for how long I’d be ‘living out of my suitcase.’ And if I ended up in Canada, there was a possibility I’d have to cross the border by air (like my co-parent and the kids did – they could not have made a land border crossing due to pandemic restrictions in place at the time.) In that event, anything I couldn’t take with me by air would have to go into storage somewhere else or disposed of.

So I packed and planned for the most difficult situation – a move to Canada in the dead of winter where I’d have to fly in.

Moving to Canada, Part One: Why I Moved To Canada

All stories sharing the structure of the Monomyth can tie the start of the plot’s “rising action” to a critical moment, a choice, a response to the Call to Adventure. The critical moment that started my move to Canada came in November of 2020, around the time of my pod’s First Thanksgiving during the COVID-19 pandemic. My co-parent had been looking to make her next career move and was considering two options: either taking a new position located in Ottawa, Ontario with her company that would be focused on their Public Sector business there, or another opportunity that would keep us rooted in Austin for the forseeable future.

The question she asked me that night was: “Is Canada completely off the table?” It was a decision I had to make as the other half of our shared custody agreement. I knew if I didn’t take Canada off the table it was highly likely she’d take that option and we’d have to figure out what that meant. I also knew that if I did take Canada off the table, she’d either take the local opportunity and we’d all end up regretting it, or there was a (greater than zero) chance she’d decide to go to Canada anyway and I’d be back to single parenting. And the thought of single parenting with even less support than I’d had in Michigan was a sobering one indeed.

So I didn’t take Canada off the table, committing us to figuring it out, whatever that meant. The company I was working for had an office in Toronto, so getting myself up there through that path would be a big ask but not out of the question. I could probably start looking into that after the New Year, once my co-parent had decided to take the Canada job.

Maybe a week or two later, a meeting with my boss and HR popped onto my work calendar. Out of nowhere, not even a week after my boss had said I was not included in the impending round of reductions, I learned I actually was.

Now I would be on my own, if when my co-parent chose Canada, to figure out a way to get there myself, if that’s something I wanted.

What could go wrong?

(a twitter thread – originally posted Feb 7 2020)

Alright, gather round. I’ll tell you my ‘Alpaca Farm’ story. This came up this morning since my friend had been trying to tell her husband about it and texted me trying to remember what had been so traumatic so she could explain it better.

In 2006, I was working as a telephone technician and got sent out on a service call to the middle of nowhere, I think somewhere around Pinckney, MI. Paperwork said customer had no dial tone on a couple extensions, something like that.

I don’t remember if the customer was under a name or a company name, not really important. Suffice it to say, I found myself at an Alpaca Farm. Owner was a nice (lonely?) middle-aged lady, greeted me, probably introduced me to an Alpaca or two that were out and about.

I remember she had a decent operation at the farm – she’d clearly done well in the past and now mostly was handling the care of the animals and business side of things while she had subcontracted out the logistics of processing the fur.

I don’t remember if she had a spouse/partner, either way they weren’t there, so it was just me, her, some alpacas and a one-floor ranch house that she lived in and worked out of. People who have business phone systems in their houses are a unique bunch anyway…