The End-ish

We started this blog - I know, I checked - so that we could remain in contact with those of you who will be missed by us. I think the blog did a good job. Along with Facebook and Flickr we were able to let you know about us as well as hear about you. Of course, it's not the same as being in the same country, but we did what we could.

This blog has also just had its 100th post. This will be the 102nd. Although there were long stretches where we didn't update the blog as much as we wanted, we feel pretty good about the 100+ posts we were able to make.

As most of you will know, we are heading home very soon to take up new jobs and start new things. We'll live at Brent's parent's house for a few days and then move all our stuff back to the townhouse. It will be our fourth move in 16 months. That's too many. We'll start shopping to replace some of the things lost in the move and set up house. We'll go shopping in a well-stocked grocery store, buy a car and a Christmas tree. These weekly, annual or less frequent events may seem pedestrian to some, but we missed out on them for quite some time.

It will probably only take a few weeks to be fully back in the swing of Canadian things. It will be nice to be in Canada for reasons other than job interviews. Certain friends who will remain nameless have kindly provided a reacclimatization course for us. We are looking forward to seeing our family and friends in a non-jet-lagged state and starting a new life in our old country.

We don't know what will happen to the blog. It appears to have served its purpose and we will likely just stop posting one day. We will certainly print out our 100+ posts and keep it as a memento of our time here.

We have been asking ourselves whether it was worth it to come here. There is no doubt that it was and we would recommend it to anyone. The new directions in our jobs have everything to do with our trip here and if we had it to do all over again, we surely would. Our lives needed some shaking up and we shook them for all we were worth. It wasn't easy, but it has gotten us (or hopefully will get us) to where we want to be. The future is brighter now than it was when we left and the excitement this has brought to our lives is invaluable.

We left a life which was too busy, chaotic, crazy, stressful and maddening for us. England has shown us a different way to live life and we hope to bring parts of this life home with us. The choices we have made in going home and starting a new life have reflected our desire not to take up with the old ways.

A recent Toronto Life article discussed the problems that lawyers now have with their busy and stressful lives. One lawyer lamented the fact that, although he was surmounting the hurdles placed in front of him and succeeding (articling, junior associate, senior associate, junior partner, etc.) he had very little outside of his job to show for his life. In his words, he was working too hard and had nothing in his photo album.

I'm glad I'm not him and hope I never will be.