Ontar-io-io

This has been a really good trip. Only a couple days left of my time 'back east.'

I feel like I've finished a huge chapter, in some ways.

Wrote the RN exam, which was my last academic pursuit (that I can see at this point anyway). That finished off my schooling for nursing.

Graduated. So I'm done with Western, and London.

Met up with most of my closest friends on this end of the country, filled each other in on our lives, and now I feel satisfactorily caught up. I also feel like a year from now, I won't necessarily be still holding on to all of those friendships- or they will just change. From updating each other on a regular basis to a once in a while reunion. Just a gradual fading. Which might sound sort of negative, but I think its being realistic.

Saw my dear family. Discussed and laughed and had fun and saw how things have changed, yet at the same time how they always stay the same. I'm glad that they let me go. I need to go.
Had renewed eyes for the Ontario landscape- despite its relative humbleness, it still is beautiful. The green Niagara escarpment, known as 'the mountain.' I still call it that too. BC folks might scoff. The farming countryside. The open road of the superhighways. The vast flat blueness of Lake Ontario with Toronto straight across the other side. The sometimes sweltering and stifling humidity. Maples and oaks. Cars with many-lettered license plates. People that all dress fairly ordinarily and look fairly predictable, humble, homey. Cheaper groceries. Milk in bags.

Ontario, my roots are here. My heritage and childhood, most of it. I went to my old high school today. Said hi to my old phys-ed teacher, one of my favourites. Walked the old familiar halls. Crossed the dusty track out back where I thought my heart would explode from too much running. Memories.

But British Columbia. You're home too. And I am very attached to that western province, my west coast. Funny how that can happen so quickly. People are versatile, living in flux.