Maybe it’s less of a haunting and more of a homecoming after all
On moving "back home" and the weird feeling of being haunted by your own self
Hi friends,
We recently celebrated the two-year anniversary of our move to Calgary, Alberta. After nearly sixteen years in BC, we all moved more than 900 kms east to the foothills of the Rockies. Our move was actually a homecoming for me.
Even though I was born in Regina and then moved to Winnipeg for a few years as a kid, we had settled in Calgary the summer before my grade 7 year so this is the place of my personal bildungsroman. I suppose I’ve always considered Calgary my hometown.
But I moved away in 1997 to attend university in the States, coming back for summers and Christmas break until about 2000, but even by then, my roots were being established elsewhere on purpose as Brian and I got married and moved to Texas. I had turned my back on Calgary pretty thoroughly. So almost 25 years passed and I just didn’t think of Calgary often: we were busy with work and building careers, having and raising babies, making ends meet, messy faith deconstruction stuff, all of it. So when we decided to move to Calgary in 2021, people responded, “Oh, you’re moving back home!” but my answer was both a “yes” and a “not really.” I had kept in touch with, let’s see here … um… absolutely no one. I never visited Calgary unless it was for work. My family had also moved away. For a supposed “hometown,” I had surprisingly few ties left and a spotty memory to boot.
Like a lot of folks, the pandemic was clarifying in terms of what we wanted and who we are and what priorities matter to us. There were a dozen reasons why we ultimately decided to leave BC and why we chose Alberta1 but most of them arranged themselves under the header of Family on our internal stay-or-go balance scales, especially for our kids’ current and future needs. When my sister and her family moved back to Calgary in early 2020 it effectively placed a thumb on the scale as I was not willing to live without my sister on the daily. That sealed it. We began the Herculean effort of moving a family of six to a new province.2
We ended up buying a home in a different area than where I grew up, it’s a part of the city that hadn’t even existed back then, beyond a development scheme at city hall. I figured I was essentially starting over in a new city, same as I’d done before. This was a fresh start for all of us, I reasoned.
When we went to the registry for our new Alberta drivers licenses, I was shocked to discover that all of my old ID numbers were there waiting for me: my health care number, my driver’s license, everything. I only had to change my maiden name to my married name but all those old numbers were in the system and they still worked.3
“Welcome home,” the clerk intoned as he passed my documents through the wicket window.
“I guess so,” I said.
There were whole swaths of my memories from Calgary missing for some reason - probably just the sheer number of years and experiences and my willful denials dividing us - but once we landed here, those memories came crashing back at the oddest of times. My sister and I were driving in the northeast one day just after our move and she stopped at a red light at the corner of 4th and McKnight. I looked around and said, “You know, this area feels familiar.”
And she said, “Um, it should - our old high school is right down this road and we drove through this intersection every single day of high school, you weirdo.”
Then a few weeks later, we went to a local swimming pool and she pointed out the building beside it. “Remember that place?” she said.
“Not really,” I admitted.
Turns out, that was our high school. Oops.
But then came the day the hauntings began in earnest. We were on MacLeod Trail and, out of nowhere, I said, “Oh, that’s where Lloyd’s Roller Rink was….right?” I had not thought of Lloyd’s in literal decades but all of a sudden, the version of me who used to roller skate in a circle under a disco ball reappeared in my memories and I knew that place as well as my own house. I could close my eyes and practically smell the place (do not recommend).
I forgot about that girl. Her braces. Her middle part. Her affection for hot rollers and high heels and serial monogamy. Her love of country music and hip hop. Her earnestness for Jesus and books in equal measure. I think I somehow forgot about the girl I used to be even though she's the foundation for everything I am now
But now that I’m back in Calgary, she’s everywhere, insisting on being remembered.
Now I see ghosts of her almost everywhere we go.
Like, here we are at Southcentre Mall on a Saturday with our crew and suddenly I remember folding t-shirts at the Smart Set there on the courtyard across from the now-shuttered Le Château back in the mid-90s on Saturday afternoons at my first real job. Or we’ll go to a park and I’ll suddenly remember being exactly there, in that particular spot, twenty-five years before and with such specificity that I can tell you what I was wearing down the eight-hole Doc Martens.
Hey, that’s the 7-11 in Midnapore where I got busted for smoking.
This is where I rode my bike through Fish Creek Park as a kid. That’s the road I was driving on when I heard Shania Twain’s debut song on the radio. This is where I wrote melodramatic diary entries and kissed boys on cold nights while ice skating at Sundance Lake in the dark and where I learned to drive a stick shift on Deerfoot Trail. There is the Value Village where I used to buy bell bottom jeans and I’m pretty sure that is the flight of stairs I climbed for an ill-advised tattoo on 17th Ave. We camped there, just around that bend in the road and a hike up, in small tents in the back country of Kananaskis.
This is where I saw the Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Amanda Marshall, The Matthew Goode Band, and a dozen other iconic Canadian bands in festivals and parks or the Republik or at the Coca-Cola stage at the Stampede. This is where I cast my first vote (and of course, like a lot of religious Alberta teenagers, I voted for the Reform Party, bless our hearts).
And there at the base of the Calgary Tower, well, that is where I went to church - so much church! too much church! twice on Sundays and again on Wednesday nights, let alone the informal hang-outs with youth group friends all weekend during the heydays of that 90s revival time.
I remembered the sinful taste of Glamorgan cheese buns and how to line dance to every single song from Country 105 and singing “Shout To The Lord” six times in a row on a Sunday and the best lookout for fireworks and that instinct for getting around the city that defies every Google Map. I’ve remembered the names of former friends I haven’t thought of in thirty years4 and playing illicit versions of Seven Minutes in Heaven as a chaser to the Degrassi High finale watch party in someone’s basement.5
At first, I felt haunted by the version of me that once existed here, the Me that I lost touch with along with everything else then.
I needed to leave her behind for a while in order to become the next version of myself. We all do that sometimes. There are versions of us that we prefer to forget or maybe we just forget to remember.
Perhaps I had a version of myself locked up in my mind, preserved, and all it took was being in this place again to set her free to wander through my memories again. I’ve remembered her in the oddest of places, in the most unexpected moments. She keeps popping up around corners with old stories that need a new telling or a kinder perspective.
Because it turns out that the version of truth and events that you told yourself at nineteen might need some updating. I’ve had to grapple with the stories I told myself about myself, this place, the people who were alongside of me.
Forgiveness - received and given - doesn’t expire.
I have changed so much since those days: politically, religiously, theologically, relationally, physically, you name it. But I can see the seeds for who I have become, even in that red-haired girl who drove a big brown Ford half-tonne with a “Get A Life, Be A Christian” bumper sticker on the back tailgate.6 When I had to take new author photos for the new book a few weeks ago, I showed the results to my parents and their primary response was, “You look like your old self.” I saw it too. Somehow, I looked more like Teenaged-Sarah in those photos than any other version of me, there was an ease and laughter and sincerity that I’ve rediscovered here.
Along with a renewal of vows for my Doc Martens.
At this stage of life, we’ve all been at least a dozen different people. Perhaps the trick is to gently bless that old version of you even as you let her go again and again. Perhaps the trick is to tell the old version of you that you love her - the not-yet-developed Polaroid picture photo of her that was still emerging - and be grateful for the foundation of her even as you keep growing up and away. I hope I learn to integrate and love the know-it-all 22-year-old youth pastor’s wife and the new-mother-zeal 26-year-old version of me and the 33-year-old Jesus Feminist version of me and the sick and sad 40 year old version of me and onwards. They all belong. They are all welcome.
I don’t know if it’s possible to understand our old selves except through the perspective prism of time and experience, love and grace.
Now, the old hurts don’t hurt like they used to, not anymore. The regrets have faded into small aches. The choices became the best I could manage at the time. The victories seem smaller, but so do the failures. The drama feels silly. I had such strong opinions, such clear ideas of good and evil, such black and white ideals, how adorable. It’s entirely developmentally normal but I’m actually grateful now, grateful, for the way that life unwound that girl’s easy certainty so quickly and mercilessly until the only foundation of certainty left was simply Love.
There was so much I couldn’t know then. Of course, this makes me wonder what 74-year-old Sarah will say about 44-year-old Sarah, perhaps in the same way that I look back at 14-year-old Sarah now with that mixture of exasperation, tenderness, laughter, and even grief.
Two years home now.
And it feels like home again.
I feel like myself in a more integrated way, a way I didn’t even know I was missing until now. It feels like I’ve gathered up a lot of disparate threads and something warm is being woven back together in me. I needed that teenaged version of me after all.
I’ve even resurrected a few unexpected things. Against the odds, an old friendship has revived. We’ll get coffee again, I hope. My cousin lives nearby and we have plans for a barbeque. The dial in my minivan stays on Country 105 more than not. I walk at Nose Hill Park sometimes and take pictures of the prairie overlooking the city skyline, convinced there is nothing more beautiful. I’m deeply invested in the Flames trade decisions. A cowboy hat from Lammle’s will reappear for Stampede in a couple of weeks, along with my Docs. I say, “The mountains are sure out today,” when we have a clear view of the Rockies to the west. When the old unfinished version of me shows up around the corners, I’ve learned to make eye contact with her because I’m learning to love her.
Really, I’m saying that I remember who I was then. She gets to be part of everything that was and everything that is and everything still to come. Maybe it’s less of a haunting and more of a homecoming after all.
Love S.
And in case you missed these recent Field Notes:
Out and about on the Internet: A small family check in + links, clicks, and other items of note (for subscribers)
Small goodness matters, maybe now more than ever: Music, podcasts, Pride service, food, a new author photo, and the other good things of right now (for subscribers)
👀 Book cover sneak peek: Preorders are open for "Field Notes for the Wilderness" now! (for everyone)
The number of people who have asked me how I’m handling Calgary’s conservatism in contrast to our more liberal/progressive tendencies is legion. But honestly? we lived in such a deeply religious, insular, and conservative part of BC for much of our time there that Calgary is a progressive urban haven by comparison and so we are (mostly) content.
Fun fact: when we told my parents that we were leaving BC to join my sister in Alberta, they wished us all the best and we made many promises about visits. Then they promptly sold their house and moved to Calgary before we did, because if all their grandbabies were in Calgary, well, guess what? Yahoo, is what. So when we arrived here, we had a whole welcome party of family after all.
Equally surprising: I still had those numbers memorized along with our old phone number.
I do wonder where they are now. (I never Google them or look them up on Facebook, that somehow feels like invading someone’s privacy. If they’re reading this, hi, how are you? I hope you’re well.)
I’ve never gotten over Joey cheating on Caitlin for Tessa Campanelli, it’s fine.
I wish I was kidding.
So many people in my family beg me to write and I flatly refuse (this librarian is a READER and not a WRITER)....and Sarah's beautiful, effortless style is confirmation to follow my gut.
Why waste time agonizing over a word processor and the writing process when one could sit back with a beverage of choice and enjoy the finished product of a REAL wordsmith? Thanks, Sarah. Once again.
P.S. Sometimes while I'm driving, lines of your "We had hoped" sermon pop into my head...even though it's been YEARS.
Beautiful, Sarah. And yes, your 74 year old self will bless today's memories just as much. I am every age I have ever been. Thankful that God's healing grace shows me the beauty and the bittersweet of each step along the path.