Starting Over After 40

One year on

A year ago today, I loaded all my earthly belongings into a U-Haul truck and drove 1250km from Halifax, Nova Scotia to start my new life in Montreal, Quebec.

The drive took 12 hours and was done with a giant question mark hanging over everything. I had no idea what awaited me when I got here. I had nothing lined up; no job, no contacts, no friends. I was using my last cent to make this move.

So, whatever happened, it had to work out.

The three years I’d spent in Halifax had been traumatic from beginning to end. On reflection, from the moment I got there, it seemed like The Universe was telling me to get the hell out. It was almost comedic how many things had gone wrong. And the more I tried to just plaster over them and carry on, the more various health issues kept arising, to the point where I became convinced I was actually allergic to the place.

You can ignore those kind of signs only so long. Because the truth is often an inconvenient one. It’s usually that you have to shake your life up in some major way; quit the job, leave the relationship, move thousands of miles away.