Two elections, two national conventions, one leadership convention, thousands upon thousands of news stories read, hundreds of Question Periods, inside jokes, fantastic colleagues, four years of being proud of the work I was supporting.
And I’m done.
My dear home city of Ottawa.
I have been feeling very good feelings about you lately Ottawa.
Walking to my office building from the parking lot next to the Supreme Court, seeing the Peace tower up above the river. It has felt very special to be working here for the past four years. It is a special thing.
Growing up here was pretty special too. I was probably a teenager before I realized that not every kid has access to all of these museums and festivals. I am very glad we’ve now made a decision and bought a house and my daughter will grow up in Ottawa too. Her childhood will be different – I lived almost downtown, walking distance from my school, a pool, arena and park. Things for her will be a little more spread out, but she’ll still have access.
I loved growing up here. I love the fall, I loved playing in the snow. I loved being around the politics and the culture. I have always come back to this city no matter how many times I try to leave.
Ottawa is my home and it is beautiful.
Today is my third-last day at work. It’s caucus day, one of the stranger days of the parliamentary week.
Three days, including today, and then I will be off to my new adventures – many of which will be had with a little girl full of imagination.
I get to be a mom. I get to get down and play with her and explore with her and experience things with her. Something I have missed since my maternity leave ended. I can take her places and do classes with her and watch her learn and grow and explore.
I get to take care of myself and my family like I haven’t been able to since I came back to work. I will have time to cook and the kid will be able to help me. I’ll have time to clean the house and make sure it stays organized.
I also get to pick and choose what kind of work I do. I’ve got a couple of things I know I’ll be doing, a couple of projects of my own, and a couple of leads for other things. Now I just have to organize my time.
One of my favourite times with the kid is the mornings. We lie in bed together while I look through emails, we sit at the table and share breakfast and I can work on my laptop. It’s a peaceful time to work and share a moment.
In the afternoons we can work at our desks, side by side, her with her crayons and me with my pen and paper, my laptop, all the things I’ll have to read and study.
I will have the bit of peace that I have been needing for so long. Every day will not be easy, every moment will not be perfect, but it will all be pretty damn good.
It’s been quite a while since I looked at these goals and I think a few things may have changed… In fact, I’m pretty sure that the last time I looked at this list we weren’t even thinking of buying any houses and I don’t think I was on my way to quitting my job either…
Organize the next book swap
Organize a knit-in afternoonKnit
Potty train the monkey – in progress, except for her insistence on being a baby
Get to 175 lbs
Write, whenever and wherever
Read – I added a page to the site to track the books I read through the year
Improve my French
Let my nails grow – I was doing alright, and then we moved and stress piled up
Make bread – I used to do this when I was a kid and it was always fun, and it makes the house smell good too
And a few things to add:
My first priority when we got possession of the new house was to make sure the kid’s room was settled for her. We got it painted before the movers came and I unpacked her clothes and books first thing. She shares a bathroom with our guest room so that’s all decorated for her too.
This weekend we hung her pictured on the walls (including this, which I bought to hang in her bathroom because it’s just so her).
She’s doing well. She loves having Grandma around, she loves her backyard as much as the dog does. We put her through a lot of changes all at once and she’s going with the flow.
While the movers were still moving us, I also managed to unpack and put away my clothes, some of our books, and the kitchen was unpacked by the next morning (except for one box we couldn’t find until this weekend).
The living room and dining room are set, the guest room is good, and finally yesterday the last piece of my puzzle was put together. My desk is ready for me.
Sure there are still boxes to unpack and we have one bookshelf that doesn’t have a spot yet, but my desk is ready. Before the move I got rid of a Ikea desk that I’ve had since high school. It was a good desk, but it wasn’t serving it’s purpose any more. Now I’m equipped with a desk that has a long tabletop, since I’ve realized that I prefer to spread out length-ways. I can have my laptop, my notebook, papers, my water or coffee, a nice table lamp.
Next to my desk in the part of our basement set aside for office space is another old desk of mine – the one my grandfather built to my specifications before I had any need for a computer. That desk will be set up with paper and crayons, maybe some stickers and gradually other crafty things so while I work my daughter can sit next to me and do her own thing.
I’m going to put a bulletin board and a magnetic board above my desk to keep things easily at hand. Just thinking about my workspace I’m already excited to put it to good use.
Yeah, I do alright
In future, this type of post will live at Absolute Equality along with the possibly differing opinions of other women, but this was happening and I had to write it out.
I was just up on Parliament Hill. Often I walk up there for work, but today it was my lunch time. I went to see the March for Life protest, and to join the pro-choice demonstration in response to it.
I have been pro-choice all my life. I remember being younger and knowing that it was about my right as a woman, but I think I have a much better understanding now.
I am not less of a person because I can carry a baby. When an embryo comes into being, its rights do not suddenly usurp mine. I am a full, developed human being with autonomy over my own body and what happens to it. My being pregnant does not mean that someone else should then be able to decide what I can and cannot do.
I was up on the hill surrounded by teenagers. I’m told that the March for Life is an annual field trip for Catholic School students from across the province. I have no problem with young people who believe that abortion is wrong. I have no difficulty understanding that side of the argument, but I have made a choice about what I think should be more important – the human being that already exists.
What I have a problem with is what I seem to see a lot of – young people who don’t understand the issue, who are not allowed to learn. Young people who are told simply that sex before marriage is a sin, and birth control is a sin, and we don’t want to teach you about safe sex or birth control, so when some of you inevitably have unprotected sex or misuse birth control and get pregnant, you will have to decide whether to sin again or put yourself through something that you may be totally unprepared for on so many different levels.
I am pro-choice, but I am also pro information. Kids need to know what they’re getting into. They need to know about protection and consequences. They need the information so they can decide what is and is not an option for them. Adults who preach one kind of life and ignore all possibility that their kids might take chances and experiment are not doing anyone any favours.
One of the things that amazes me about the kid right now is the memory she’s building.
Hours or days after the fact she’ll say “thank you, mommy,” when she picks up a toy she remembers me buying for her. Hours or days later she’ll say “I’m sorry, mommy,” and when I ask why she reminds me of something that she did that was wrong.
It started one afternoon. We had been out to breakfast and we ask her now whether she wants a high chair or a booster. That day she chose high chair but decided at some point during the meal that she didn’t want the high chair any more. She started yelling and pushing her chair away from the table. She smacked me, pushed my hands off the chair as I tried to hold it steady, and push me away.
That evening I was in the kitchen starting dinner prep and the kid was sitting at the table eating a snack and she said something to me that I didn’t quite catch. “What was that?” “I’m sorry.” “What baby?” “I’m sorry Mommy.” “Why are you sorry baby?” “I pushed you at breakfast.”
Her grandmother brought her a teddy bear and presented her with it on the weekend. When she picked it out of her toybox yesterday she turned around: “Thank you, Grandma.”
“Remember” is quickly becoming one of her favourite words, though I don’t think she quite gets the concept yet. She does come out with the strangest things at the strangest times. Twice last week, sitting around doing nothing even related to hockey she declared “I love Sidney Crosby.” On Tuesday we went out to breakfast as a family before dropping Joe at work and SportsCentre was on the diner TVs so she got to see the handshakes at the end of the Phoenix-Nashville series. Later in the day she said to her Grandma: “Remember the goalies hugged?”
(Of course, Grandma had no idea what she was talking about, but I did).
It’s fascinating, the things she hangs on to and what she blurts out. I love this age.
May is my month for leaving things behind. We left our home of almost three years and moved to a home that will last us many more. I left a job I’d been in for almost five years of highs and lows and moved on to creating my own opportunities.
I’m leaving things behind and building and I have a wonderful support system behind me to do it.
I have always been a little terrified of leaving the safe place and moving out a little further into the world, but right now, sitting here thinking about what’s ahead, I’m nothing but calm.
Things I’ve wanted for years, things I’ve been thinking about for months, things I’ve planning for are all coming together and it’s up to me to make it work, but I feel strong.
Because I can.
Today is our last day in the house we brought the baby girl home to. Where she learned to roll and crawl and walk. Where we spent her first year together, learning about each other.
This house has been a very good house. We all fit nicely with room to move and play. It has it’s difficulties – Joe and I could never both be working in the kitchen without risking injury – but it has been our home comfortably for almost three years.
And now we move on. Further away from downtown and the neighbourhood where I grew up happily, into a neighbourhood where we’ve already met three of our neighbours – people who just happened to stop by and say welcome.
There are dogs and cats and young families all over this neighbourhood. There is a backyard big enough for the dog to run around, the kid to play and Joe to barbecue all together. There is a kitchen where we can all work together. Room for me, my husband, my daughter, my dog and my mother to live comfortably and have our own spaces. Room to grow.
Moving into this new house that already feels like home benefits all of us and I look forward to learning this house over the next decades. Everything is coming together.
