Rx 6: IDENTITY

I remember so well when this picture was taken. It was my parent's vacation property in Invermere, British Columbia - which is a beautiful lake community, nestled among trees. When my parents had bought it, they had imagined creating a space where my brothers' respective families and my family could all gather for decades to come. But circumstances change, and the place was not meant to be. My older brother and his family moved across the country. My younger brother and his wife had such busy schedules that they couldn't make it out more than a couple of times a year. And just before my parents finally put the home on the market, I announced that my marriage was ending. Coupled with the financial downturn, selling the property made so much sense - but I couldn't help but somehow feel like my broken family unit was contributing to the dissolving of a bigger dream. The vacation property almost became a symbol of our collective hopes and future ideas of "family time", and then, letting go of all the visions associated with that.

When almost all the furniture had been cleared out, and the sun had long since disappeared, we all stood silently on the bare hardwood floors. Contemplative. I snuck out to the back yard to feel the grass under my feet, to breathe in the mountain air, to pause a moment. Letting go of an idea, even an idea that may never have been completely realistic, is hard. It felt like the shedding of an identity, perhaps even a shared identity, one in which multiple generations would gather at the lake and create memories together - now, needing to be reimagined.

The furniture from that property now largely lives on in my house here in Calgary, a house that I purchased following my divorce and a home I've created here with my two children. These are physical, material things that once elicited stronger emotional responses but now have new memories attached. And I don't think about Invermere so much anymore, because our family has shifted and evolved, and found new ways in which to celebrate togetherness.

I have been thinking lately about the tension between accepting oneself (and others) for who we are while simultaneously working towards change. This requires both serenity and intentionality to be open for shifts, open to be flexible, to not cling too tightly to any one idea of what the future might be. Selling this home was one way (albeit a slightly painful one) of letting go, of changing. And it has helped me - perhaps even my whole family - to move forward and grow, maybe in even more interesting ways than we might have otherwise.