Afterthoughts

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After returning home, lots of realizations have slowly sunk in. I have been home now for almost 5 weeks and it still feels like yesterday when I came off the plane. Since coming home I have slipped into my everyday routine with far more ease than I expected. I have a full time job back in Oil & Gas at a small but fast moving company doing - you guessed it! Accounting! And reception. I really think this was the best move for me right now as I need to get my life back in order, recoup some of the expense I brought home as a souvenir and start moving my career in new directions. With the company being as small as it is I really get the opportunity to learn about every aspect of running a oil & gas company, and I am really excited to learn and advance in this area.
Calgary was still here waiting for me, summer was over and the day after I got home it actually snowed! The snow didn’t stick around and didn’t even last long enough to stay on the grass, but there were small white flakes falling from the sky. Welcome back to Canada!
My family missed me- even if Kent and Todd are too stubborn to admit it, Mom on the other hand detailed every moment that she missed me in! Oh Mom, I missed you too! I bet all Mom’s friends are glad I’m back as they no longer have to hear the count down until my return.
I really fell in love with Africa while I was there, it’s no Canada but it felt a lot like it could have become a home. I know that I will be returning and hopefully returning very soon. The next time I go I really want to be able to station myself somewhere for a while, I want to be able to see how people live their day-to-day lives and I would like to learn how to live my day-to-day life there too. I think the biggest thing I have realized and missed since I got home is the simplicity and lack of pressure on the expectation of your life. Here in Calgary there is a huge universal idea that one should be making BIG money, driving insanely expensive cars, owning houses the size of hotels and vying for top dog with everyone you know. I like that the only worry I had for the day was if I had to help with dishes and cooking. It was a much needed break.
My big goal on returning home is to start living in the moment more. I know I stress too much about how I am going to achieve something 10 year down the road than enjoying the good moments of today. It is a lot harder than I thought to stop worrying about how I am going to afford that shiny new truck in 3 years and start worrying about how I am going to make today better. I really want to bring a more simplistic way of life into my routine, to find one way everyday to appreciate what I have- to sit down for 5 minutes and enjoy breathing the crisp winter winds, or the blustery Chinook gales. Life is not about what I can buy, it is about how I can live. I don’t think that I will be lying on my death bed regretting the fact that I didn’t buy a brand new fully loaded truck, or that I didn’t work 90 hours a week. I think I will be lying there thinking “Wow! Look what I saw! Look what I did! Now that is living!”

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