I was supposed to be back in Montréal last night already, but while I was having lunch (yesterday) with the friend who was going to drive me to the airport, I got a text message notification that my flight was cancelled. But y'know, sometimes it be like dat. So my flight got re-scheduled to today, so surprise! I'm still at home. For like, another ten minutes at this point haha.
It was nice though. After a whirlwind weekend wherein I didn't actually spend any significant period of time at home, it was relaxing to just stay in, share some laughs, eat pizza and popcorn, and play Skip-bo with my family last night.
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| the dress rehearsal view from this weekend. |
It was a successful surprise. And because I've never done anything quite so cool and legit in my life, I filmed the experience. Sooo you can check it out right here if you haven't watched that video yet.
My church's 21st annual Christmas Festival took place this weekend, and although I logically and adult-ly recognized that I'm in a different phase of life so maaaybe possibly perhaps the wisest idea would have been to just save my moolah and stay in Montréal, I just Could. Not. Cope. with the idea of missing it. What can I say? I'm emotionally-driven oKAY? Aaand, seeing as the surprise was a success, it turns out that when necessary, I can be sneakier than I'd ever thought. 😏🤫
The weekend was so fun! My church's weekend-long Christmas Festival always starts my Christmas season off right.
But it was weird for me. Almost so weird that I don't even want to continue writing this post.
I thought that everything would be the same.
I thought that everyone would be the same.
I thought everything would be just as I left it on September 9th when I travelled to Montréal.
And I suppose some things were the same. My house (except for the new shower), my church (except for the Christmas decorations, but I suppose those go up every year so it's fine), my neighbourhood, the cold. I can't even say that my city is the same though, because some of the construction projects that were in the works when I left are done now, so some things look different.
However, I've come to recognize that it's hardly fair of me to expect everything and everyone to be the same, when I know that I am not the same. And time has passed - eighty-six days, to be precise - and I know that there's potential for anything to change in an instant, let alone eighty-six days.
But I guess I've always just thought that home was going to be the same forever. And by "home" I mean more than just the house-building that I live in. I mean: my friends, my family, my church, my former Bible college, my city. Everything always seemed to stay the same over the course of the past four years when I was away at school.
But I was still close.
I lived only twenty minutes away from home, not eight hours.
I lived in the same province, attended my home church every week, saw my parents at church, and had a weekly supper with my brother.
Yes, I made new friends while I was in college, but I still semi-regularly saw my old friends too.
And while things changed and people changed and I changed, I felt present for it, and the changes seemed to happen slowly. We only really noticed them when we'd look back and reflect.
I don't experience that now.
I find out things that people simply forgot to tell me because I'm far away. I wasn't involved in any planning/prep/conducting/solo-singing for the Christmas Festival because I was far away. However, part of that situation is my own fault because I wanted my presence to be a secret. But it's hard seeing things that have changed, and hearing "Oh sorry, I guess I didn't tell you that because you're not here anymore".
It's been a lot to process. Some of this has been processed right now, just as I've been typing this all out.
Sometimes all of these weird feelings and changes have made me wish that I'd just stayed in Montréal until December 23rd, when my internship ends. But I know I'd have regretted missing the Christmas Festival. And surprising my parents and friends was SO worth it! ❤️
And who knows. Maybe all of this has been necessary. A necessary realization that no longer being a student means nothing in life from graduation onwards will be consistent or predictable. A foretaste of how weird things will be when I come back to Ontario for real in just nineteen days - yes, this is me confirming that I'm coming home and not staying in Montréal... for the foreseeable future, that is.
A necessary realization of the inconsistency and uncertainty of everything.
Everything except for Jesus.
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." (Hebrews 13:8)
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