Feels Like Home to Me

I've lived in Manitoba for nearly nine years now (including the two years I spent at CBC). Before that I lived in Alberta for fifteen years; thirteen of the those years were spent on the very farm my father grew up on. The last two years were spent living in the house my grandma lived in for as long as I can remember...it was my second home in a variety of ways.

Moving to Manitoba wasn't easy. I wanted to stay in Coaldale, I wanted to keep my friends, I wanted to graduate from the same high school that my dad, sister and brother all graduated from. I wanted to stay at home. For these reasons and more, I refused to allow Manitoba to become home. I bided my time, knowing that I had to endure three years of high school before I could move to BC for Bible college and I had no intentions of returning to this "waste land" as I called it. Alas, financial pressures being what they are in life, and the economy being what it is in the west, I did return to Manitoba after Bible school. And still, Manitoba did not feel like home to me.

It's four years later, and just now am I beginning to be able to call Winnipeg "home." It's not that I think I will stay here forever, because I highly doubt I will, but I have a life here now. I have a church home where I am involved, appreciated and nurtured. I have extremely close friends in a variety of networks, many of whom I can't bear to be separated from for any length of time. I have a house (well, sort of). I finally have allowed myself to feel at home here.

So how come whenever I travel to Alberta my eyes fill with tears as soon as I enter the province? Why am I instantly enveloped in this comforting sense of really being home when I cross the border? Why do I still instinctively know that there is nothing like the Alberta sky? Why is west my favorite direction? Why do I have this hard knot in my stomach, like I'm going the wrong direction, that I'm leaving something extremely important behind that gets farther and farther away with each passing mile road as we head back to Manitoba?

I guess I'll always be an Alberta girl.