Lately, I’ve started wondering if it’s worth me staying in Toronto, and even Canada.
In terms of friends that I actually see, there’s only one that I really see with any regularity. There’s a small group that I see once a month. But other than those, that’s about it.
Sure, it’s easy to say “Make some more friends, get to know more people,” and things like that, but I find making friends to be rather hard — especially that I’m on the wrong side of 50 now, and so many people around here (in the furry community) are much younger.
So most of the time, I just feel alone where I am.
It’s not just specific to Toronto, as I had much the same kind of thing when I was back in Vancouver as well. When I was in the Bay Area, it was less so, but still there were just few people that I really hung out with on any regular basis.
Then there’s the thought of family back in the UK. Since I left there in 1997 my family back there has grown. My brother got married, and now has three kids (a boy who’s 7, and twin girls who will be 4 – I think? – later this year). They moved to a house that’s about 2 miles away from my parents’ place, and now my aunt (my mother’s sister) is looking to move to the same area as well.
The family back there seems to have become closer, with more gatherings and even vacations away together. For example, this week they’re all down in a big house near Lymington, just south of the New Forest.
My mom will be 80 this year, and my dad was 85 back at the end of April. My aunt is few years younger than my mom, and my brother is a few years younger than me.
I’m starting to worry that being separated from them by the Atlantic might make things harder as the years move on, especially considering that my dad has got some progressing dementia.
I also worry that when – eventually – my parents pass on, the physical distance between myself and my brother’s family may lead to falling out of touch with them.
This has made me start to think about something I really didn’t plan on doing: Should I consider moving back to the UK?
Sure, it would be a big upheaval after spending close to 27 years (and now over half my life) living in N. America. But is it possible that there may be more for me there right now than there is here?
I’d likely be able to move back and still keep my current job, because we’re pretty much remote work now anyway. Also, there is one person in an adjacent team to mine (which escalates things up to my team) that is located in the UK already, so having someone in that timezone as well may well be useful.
I’m not sure, and I couldn’t get to sleep last night because that thought was occupying my mind.
When I left in 1997, there wasn’t too much for me there (other than family). But now, the furry fandom has come on in leaps and bounds there – not just in the UK, but over the English Channel as well with places like Germany, Sweden, and so on within just as easy reach as flying from Toronto to San Francisco or so. There are some ren faires over in the UK, as well as fantasy faires like Elfia over in the Netherlands.
I also spent much of my teen years being interested in the railways there, and compared to N.America, railways in the UK (and Europe) are far more interesting to me, plus they can take me more places — admittedly not cheaply within the UK, but there’s still things there that I’d love to do now that I didn’t even know about back in the 80’s and 90’s.
But it’s a massive move to do.
I’m just not sure…
