(Heheh... that title makes me think of pirates.) I got to reminiscing today. Actually, have been a lot recently. A cluster of little experiences that point my mind at memories of Calgary. For whatever reasons, my time trading has come up several times in the past week; watched a doc on Enron, was reminded of the Go-Trading-Yoga connection, randomly discovered my old trading blog still exists. Also discovered some old Calgary photos I'd forgotten while preparing a presentation for my class. Then this evening in the span of 30 minutes, there was some very Calgary-like weather that struck Regina, followed by me running into a friend from Calgary online who had just got back from seeing a gig by an Australian band with a sound that totally reminded me of my roomies back in Calgary. It's exactly their kind of music (one was Australian afterall). It was the music that really kicked in the deep reminiscing. In some sense... it embodied what life felt like in Calgary. My experience of Calgary was kind of that Calgary is Canada's little Australia; it's all about the fun. You live and you work in order to go have fun. It's all about the people and the experiences instead of the form and function. It all made me a little homesick. And I find it quite interesting and amazing that I still feel that way. It's just over two years now since I moved away from Calgary, and I had only lived there a single year. I remember though... that the moment I drove into that city back in 2006 it felt immediately like home, and it still hasn't lost that. Regina is comfortable, but it will always remain "back home" instead of "Home" even though I'm living here right now. I don't know if Regina could ever quite be Home again. Often when I find myself in one of those patterns where I happen to think about Calgary a lot, I find myself also feeling something particularly unusual for me. I regret very very little about all of the millions of choices I've made in life and things I've done, but I really do regret leaving Calgary when I did. Almost nothing else in my life can I honestly say I would change if I had the opportunity to go back. But there's no doubt in my mind that I would go back and change that decision to leave if I could. It's not just the curiosity of what the other path might have been like, it's that I would rather be on that other path wherever it went. It broke me a bit, I think, to leave. I feel like I stole myself from myself. In the long run, I'm sure I will find sufficient good in it. I can find much now of course, enough to pacify when thinking about where I am and what I'm trying to do right now and knowing that much of it probably would not have come to pass if I had not left. And also knowing that that person would no longer be the me that is me, here and now. But... I still can't look on that decision with anything but regret. It is the single choice that signalled the start of the hardest year of my life. I hope that someday I will change my mind, but I'm not convinced of anything yet. I remember right when I got back to Regina though, I had a really good conversation with someone I don't see nearly enough of. He told me... to keep the connections, keep the good thoughts, because you never quite know what might end up happening around the next corner, or the next after that. You never know when you might find yourself with an opportunity to return to something you thought you'd left forever. He was speaking to one aspect of life, but of course that thought can be broadly applied - and broadly apply I did. It gave me what I needed to find some reason to be back here, back where I started. And so it also makes sense that I'm thinking of this so frequently right now. I'm trying to figure out how to accomplish what I made my self-justification for returning; my goal for the next few years. But I haven't figured it out yet because a number of things are just completely out of my control. I hope that my chosen door will stay open because I'm starting to see some of the light from the choices on the other side... but it might get closed for a while and this time, if it does, it probably will be closed indefinitely whether I like it or not. That sense of a lack of control... it is something very familiar. I'm not comfortable standing still, never have been. Some part of me craves that state of not being tied down by anything, having the freedom to just up and leave down some new path that calls me. Exploration leads to opportunity. But... opportunity leads to options. And as the advertising experts are fast-discovering, too many options can stagnate the decision. Choosing one means not choosing others. The more options, the more things you choose not to do too. An unpleasant reciprocal I've had a lifetime of difficulty facing. The foreboding sense of a lack of control is a symptom of a decision approaching. My wanderlust is what opens doors, but also what scares me away from choosing one. I crave the freedom to discover opportunity and am frightened by the closure that choice provides. I'm a pathfinder, not a path-chooser. This year has also really aged me. I feel like... somewhere in there I went from 22 to 32 all in the past year and a half. I feel like there is a lot less time. I feel a new weight... the press of time that I never really felt like this before. I don't like it. But maybe, like the pressure of an assignment deadline, it will ultimately be what spurs me to finally hurl myself at another choice instead of exploring the options. You know... those long bike rides I used to take early in the morning way back in high school years before the life-altering theft of my third bike, each and every one was a profound experience unto itself. I was only ever at peace on my bike, not knowing where I was going. They were never forced. I would randomly wake up very early and I would feel compelled to hop on my bike and let each moment guide the action of the next. I don't think that compulsion ever really went away... the bike rides just got longer and longer. I wonder if someday I will find my way off the bike.