Oh, Canada, why can’t I leave you?

It’s minus 29 outside. Minus 37 with the windchill. Ray is visiting his mom in Georgetown and I’m having a pajama day. The weather warning states that “if it’s too cold for you to stay outside, it’s too cold for your pet to stay outside.” They probably need to add some context, or I’d keep Juno inside from November through April.

In the three weeks that school’s been back in session, we’ve had seven snow days (schools open, buses cancelled). Another snowstorm is expected to pass through tomorrow, so it’s quite likely Monday will be a snow day as well.

With Canada’s harsh winters, it’s easy to understand why so many retirees head south for the winter, or permanently relocate to warmer countries. We haven’t done that (yet) for a few reasons. Certainly the biggest drawback of having a dog is the impact on our ability to travel for long periods. We’ll leave Juno with people for a week to ten days, but that’s about our limit.

Since retiring, the balance between my desire for adventure and my desire to spend time with my ‘support network’ has shifted. At 25, when I flew to Stockholm, not knowing a soul in the country, I was full of excitement and had no qualms about being far away from family for what turned out to be more than three years. It’s not that I wasn’t close to my family, but my desire for adventure outweighed that. I was young and immortal.

Before retiring, I made lists of potential plans, many of which involved extended periods of travel – buy a catamaran and sail the Caribbean, buy a canal boat and tour France’s waterways, buy an RV and hit the road. (None of the ideas, incidentally, involved us owning a dog.)

So what happened to that sense of adventure and desire to travel the world? When Nick was sick, I had a moment of complete clarity that felt like an epiphany, where I understood that travel didn’t matter and being with the people you love did.

As I sit here in this deep freeze, I can easily question the veracity of that ‘revelation’, but I can’t deny that we have roots here. The value of living where you have a support network is a factor to weigh when making decisions about where to live in retirement. Ray and I have experienced how important that is, so it carried a lot of weight for us.

In 2011, after having lived in England for four years, we moved back to Canada. Both my parents were diagnosed with cancer within weeks of our return. My mom passed away two months after we got back. During that time, our support network felt like a safety net. While we juggled moving countries, travelling between Ottawa and Georgetown, helping Nick settle into a new school, planning a celebration of life, and helping my dad before and after his surgery, friends and neighbours were always there, quietly finding ways to lighten our load.

In August 2017, we lost my dad and Ray’s sister. A couple of weeks later, Nick moved to Kingston for university, but soon started having health issues. After months of tests, and a lot of waiting, he was diagnosed with lymphoma. That was followed by six months of chemotherapy. During that challenging time, our support network wrapped around us like a blanket, providing comfort and warmth.

The amount of strength we drew from family, friends and neighbours during those times is immeasurable. It’s not hard to see why the strength of our relationships plays such an important role in longevity.

Being part of a community is important to both of us. I grew up – and Ray and I met – on a street where neighbours were like family (in our case, neighbours became family). Everywhere we’ve lived, we’ve had a handful of people we can call to watch the house when we’re away, to look after our pets, or to come pick us up if we’re stranded. And we do the same for them, of course. Ray is very good at developing that community. He’s the one who strikes up conversations with people, clears snow for the neighbours, and meets all the dog owners. We can’t imagine living somewhere we don’t have that.

Our “friends & neighbours” support network is spread out between the UK, the Ottawa region, and Brighton. Our family is all west of Toronto…some farther west than others. We’ve learned we can always form a new community, but there’s also value in shared history, and in having a place, or places, where you belong.

All that is not to say we won’t someday spend a few months a year somewhere warm, but the idea of moving out of the country permanently isn’t on the table. Even though I’ve lived in Sweden and England, I always knew I’d be coming home. Canada, moody as she is, is where my roots are, and I’m Canadian to the core.

I guess I should be talking about Ontario winters, not Canadian winters, since Vancouver is also in Canada and Nick has been out sitting on his balcony in a t-shirt, riding his bike around town, and mild-weather skiing at Whistler.

Okay, so winter is pretty, I’ll give you that. Even today, cold as it is, the sun is shining and the sky is blue and cloudless. I’ve got chai latté, puzzles, books, and a warm fire to keep me going. All good…but if anyone sends me pics of palm trees and beaches today, I may say mean things about them behind their back. Fair warning.