Mango trench
Wilfred top (similar)
Mango jeans
Mango heels
Cuyana tote
RayBan sunglasses
Mejuri necklace (c/o) (similar)
Mejuri bracelet (similar)
Linjer ring (c/o) (similar)
Mejuri earrings (similar)
Location: Saint Luke’s Church – Winnipeg, Manitoba
Next month marks four years since Ian and I moved back to Manitoba. We both grew up here, so in theory it was a homecoming, but it didn’t feel that way for me. Winnipeg is where I was born, but Paris – Europe, at least – is where I belong. Going back there, landing at Charles de Gaulle airport, is a homecoming. Our return to Winnipeg was, perhaps, always in the cards, but was an event without particular excitement or fanfare. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was, I knew even then, what I needed, and I feel that now almost more than ever.
I think some people live happy, funfilled teenaged years, but I wasn’t one of them. When I left Winnipeg at nineteen, I didn’t like myself very much. While I was away, I invested a lot of time, effort and energy into becoming the person I’d always wanted to be. The fact of being away allowed me both the time and the space to do that. I came back twelve years later as a different person; self-assured, assertive and utterly unconcerned by the opinions of others. In many ways, that actually made the homecoming harder.
(It also made it more necessary. It’s not the same for everyone, but for me, it wasn’t enough just to grow elsewhere. I needed to come home again to prove to myself that my growth wasn’t conditional or dependent upon my geographic location. I needed to be able to be me here, in this place, without compromising to please anyone. For me, that was the point.)
There are inherent perils in any homecoming, but especially in one like mine, where you’ve spent a big part of your formative years elsewhere, leaving behind little more than the memory of who you were when you left. Coming home means facing the reality that even if you didn’t like yourself when you left, others did like you exactly as you were. There will be people who missed the person you were, who are expecting that person to be the one who came back.
The person I was when I left Winnipeg at nineteen was, for many people, much more palatable. She held back her controversial opinions and rarely refused anything to anyone, all in the name of niceness, because she believed nice was what she was supposed to be, even if it made her miserable. At times, since we came home, I’ve found myself in a position of slipping back into those old patterns with a long ago acquaintance because I know that’s what they expect and I catch myself worrying, on some level, that the person I really am will be someone they dislike. Sometimes, it easier to pretend that I haven’t changed than to face the possibility of losing someone because I have.
It doesn’t all happen at once, either. It’s been nearly four years for me, but these scenarios, these moments of uncertainty don’t all take place in the first days after a homecoming. Sometimes a year goes by and I think to myself that it’s all going well. I begin to settle in. I feel like I’m fitting into a new space I’ve built for myself in Winnipeg, and that space becomes comfortable. But then I run into someone I haven’t seen for years and I realise I need to start all over again with them. Each time, I’m faced with two choices: I can act like nothing but my age has changed, knowing that’s what they’re expecting, or I can be myself, recognising the inherent risk that comes with that.
More and more as time goes on, I remember that this is the only life I get, which means it’s how I feel that matters. And I feel, increasingly, like the risk is worth it. I love who I am now. That matters infinitely more to me than if anyone else does.
This really resonates with me – I see a lot of my own feelings about my 6 years away and eventual return in your words – we tend to always think of homecomings as joyous affairs, reunions with people and places, but sometimes there’s ambivalence in them, regret, etc.
Courtney ~ Sartorial Sidelines