Sometimes there are no good choices

Choosing a place to finally settle down in Canada has been an evolution.

Our original destination was Calgary. My sister and my delightful niece live there, and with the booming oil economy it seemed like a place that we would be able to relate to and start a life in.

I think two things sounded the death-knell for Calgary once we got there. The first was arriving in late November and the temperature dropping below -20C within the first week. The second was the lack of downtown vibrancy.  After living in Dubai I wanted to enjoy the perks of vibrant North American city living. I wanted nice places to walk and I wanted green space. I don’t want to live in the suburbs and I don’t want to spend all day in my car.

Calgary just wasn’t a good fit for us and that’s something we couldn’t really have known until we got there. So we took stock, decided to cut our losses and headed east to Toronto.

Looking back, those first couple of weeks in Toronto seem like a bad dream. We stayed at my Mom and Dad's house while looking for an apartment.  My parents are lovely, and generously opened their home to us and lent us their cars so that we could get organized. They fed us, encouraged us and were fantastic hosts. 

However, after living away from them for so long, I wasn’t used to their probing questions and unsolicited advice.  I know that’s what family does, but I’m not used to having to explain or justify my day-to-day actions to anyone, so I was defensive, testy  and on edge for most of the time we stayed there (sorry Mom).  When I’m feeling unsure about my whole life and questioning my place in the world I don’t want to have to explain why I did one thing and not another.

I think mostly I was just really, really stressed.  There were so many decisions to make and I haven’t had to make many decisions over the past few years.  My life was very ordered in Dubai and in some ways I was very sheltered. I lived in the same house for four years and paid one lump sum that covered rent, electricity, internet and house-cleaning.  I had been in the same job for more than five years and have been together with my husband for eight. My biggest decision on most days was what to cook for dinner and even then I couldn’t decide sometimes. I was completely out of practice.

And then I arrive in Canada and all of a sudden I am faced with a barrage of decisions to make and they are all pretty important ones. Which part of Canada, which city, downtown or suburbs, what size apartment? I mean, how do you know what your budget is when you don’t have a job?

We had all of our furniture that we shipped from the Middle East arriving and nowhere to put it and were about to sign a lease to spend money we weren’t yet earning.

I learned a very important life lesson in that period: sometimes you have no good choices. There is only making the best of a series of less-than-ideal options. So you try to pick the least bad choice and hope that you haven't buggered up your life completely.