The Noughties: the decade of stress and destress. Destress!

This was written last night during a power outage.

We got a weather bomb this evening, much to my amazement. It snuck up on me, whatever about other people. Yesterday the TV people talked about some snow and I thought, ah well, another evening on my own while my beloved ploughs shopping malls so people can buy crap even when it's snowing and they should be home where it's warm.

But when I got up this morning the weather network had a storm surge warning, a winter storm warning and an extreme wind warning. Despite all the warnings, I pottered about all day as usual until Himself's cousin mentioned something about candles, etc on FaceBook.

Shit.

Candles.

Even more importantly, etc.

Himself had already gone to work, so I rummaged around in the barn until I found the stove and the gas canisters and the camp kettle. I got the flashlight and tied everything down on the deck and the power went at 6.45pm, just as I was settling down to a night's mindless electronics-based entertainment.

Three long lingering flickers and she's gone for the night.

It's gone everywhere, so we'll have to take our place in the queue for service resumption.

It came back on at 3.15am, which was not so bad.

So instead of the opening of Season 4 of Dexter, I am sitting with a glass of Baileys (the ice is melting in the fridge so I have to use it up!), surrounded by the soft glow of candles. The furnace is out, but I have blankets and I heated water on the camp stove for a hot water bottle.

The dog is sleeping next to the back door, tired and sulky because I wouldn't let her run around the yard enjoying the 100 kph wind gusts.

I suppose that just about sums up the second half of the decade for me. I spent the first half of the decade feeling sorry for myself. The second half I spent accumulating the wherewithal to sit in the dark and cold with no company except for a crazy dog, and limited access to electronics, feeling thankful for the opportunity to do so.

Of course, I accept that this evening could not happen without battery power. I have a torch for when I need to walk around the house.

The northeast wind is HOWLING round the house.

I hope a tree doesn't fall on me.

So where was I with the decade... oh yes, I decided to move to Canada. To this day I don't know why. I get asked all the time by people who grew up here and think Europe is the bees knickers.

I just say it was a whim.

Sounds better than an inexplicable urge to get the hell out of the strait-jacket of a life I had put myself in.

Anyways, I don't know why I did it. Some days I'm glad I did, some days I'm not, and most days I don't think about it too much anymore.

The weird thing is how it all turned out. I came to Canada and something made me go to Nova Scotia, even though I'd planned on going to Alberta, and then something else made me go to a little island off its south west coast, even though there was no reason to go there apart from seeing a whale, and then I met Himself.

Destiny?

A series of bizarre coincidences?

Who knows.

And we decided to build a life together against pretty immeasurable obstacles at the time. But we have overcome every one of them.

So I guess the second half of the decade was also all about taking the stubbornness that I had honed in the first half, and putting it to good use.

Now I have everything I dreamed of having on those depressing Sundays so long ago. The soulmate. The home. The copse of trees. The ferns and the mushrooms and orchids hidden in its dank depths. The dog waiting for me every evening.

The deck with the bbq and the wind chimes I always dreamed about. The sound of the shore every day, every night. The dilapidated, monster camping 4X4. The canoe on its roof. The camping gear in the back. The special places we take off to by the lake, by the sea, in the forest. The friends we go camping with. The photos. The summer tan.

Not so much the mosquito bites on my legs.

The vegetable garden. The greenhouse. The flowergarden. The humming birds that visit in the summer.

The seasons. The colours of my maple trees in the Canadian Fall. The job (until March anyways). The trips home and away. The country of Canada to explore and love. The bookshelves. The books on them. The laptop. The global connection to everyone everywhere that I need to stay in touch with.

Peace. Peace and quiet. No sirens. No noisy neighbours. No fighting or yelling or loud television sets. Silence.

Yesirreebob, if you want silence, come to the Great White North.

What I don't have is a decent hair cut, highlights, lowlights, any kind of decent dye job, manicures, acceptable tights, a single suit or acceptable item of power wardrobing (although I have quite the collection of spark-burned fleeces).

Interestingly, I still manage the killer shoes... I wonder how that happens... but I have nothing to wear them with except denims!

I don't spend evenings in restaurants or at gigs or even in pubs, I can't spend more than $14 on a bottle of wine, or buy books when they are first published. I can't go to hotels for the weekend, and I'll probably never get to go shopping in Montreal or New York or Dublin again.

I miss every single one of those luxuries more than I will ever admit to my beloved. I still sniffle over the absence of Anthropologie clothes in my life. And I still lie awake at night worrying about stupid things. Because that's what I do.

I still try to talk myself into a funk every now and again, because that's what I also do, but it's hard to find the energy to be depressed when you have an animal who needs to be walked along glorious clifftops every sunset.

February of course, is another beast entirely, but everyone in Canada has the blaghs in February so it's okay to be morose.

The wind has dropped out completely now in the hour it took to write this. The moon is out and shining in the window. The Hunter is sparkling to the south east of the moon.

If the power was on I wouldn't have had the curtains open and I wouldn't see it.

I guess I should bring the dog out for a run.

One thing that interests me is where I got this dream from (Observer magazine? My childhood reading?) and whether all this positive thinking stuff is true - did I imagine it into existence as Mr. Chopra would have me believe?

Or is it just the culmination of a series of random choices I made this decade?

Who knows?

I wonder what I'll have done in ten years time?

As usual, I have no plan whatsoever, apart from a faint urge to move to the beach in South America (which I share with the rest of this huge country)!

Happy New Year everyone. Happy New Decade! Just think, in ten years, all those kids will be teenagers!!