A journal entry from this time last year.

Friday, December 19, 2008 - 3:08am

I sit on the train, late at night, rolling through British Columbia. My throat is dry and scratchy and feels like it's getting sick. I slept lightly. It's a more intimate travel experience on this train. It’s slowed down. I feel like it’s a hundred years ago. It has a novelty and romanticism about it. We pass through sleepy towns and cold dark fields. I sit next to my brother, who sleeps soundly. I had a nice visit. We did some stuff – checked out downtown, Granville island, the Vancouver Gallery, some local bars and coffee shops. Did a ton of shopping – spent enough money to feel the pangs of guilt. But it is Christmas – a very apropos time to feel guilty. It’s different out here. I mean, my life out here is different than it was in Saskatoon. The people are the same: trying to get places, trying to do things, worrying, laughing, working. Of course I'm different – Im sleeping on someones pullout couch and living out of luggage that is too big that arrived too late. I sleep late, drink fairly steadily, and simply wake and walk and take things in during the day. Very different from the 12 hour work days I left behind. It is so easy to return to a carefree lifestyle. So easy it’s scary. I looked forward to this trip for weeks or months. I looked forward to this train ride. Was it as good as I hoped? Is anything ever what one hopes?

I feel like I should make some kind of big personal breakthrough on this train. Like these 36 hours should be more special and meaningful than those that preceded it or those that will come after. No reason it should be the place for this to happen. And yet I feel like it should be. A problem in a family relationship plagues my mind. Tosses me about. Consumes me. A book I'm reading suggested that thinking of every angle of a problem is not always the solution. It suggested that sometimes more information is not better. It suggested that silence and quieting the mind is the only solution – this allows one to see that some problems need to only resolve themselves, work themselves out. That they are not problems that must be solved but simply processes, or paths. This person is on their own path, and my relationship to them is part of that. Not for me to solve or figure out, but to support and try to manage my family role and my other roles – helper, son, brother, friend. To try to not make things harder or more difficult but recognizing that I might sometimes do just this. It makes me human.

And soon I will return home where more ‘being human’ will happen. Managing friendships - deciding how best to be close to those important in my life, and doing so while trying to maintain my Jeffness. Forging new relationships - meeting people on the same page as me, or at least the same chapter. Learning and growing in my work - doing the best that I can for my clients, learning what I can from supervisors and colleagues, moving forward in my studies at this molasses pace that I'm becoming all too familiar with. Connecting with my family – seeing the good and recognizing the importance of these relationships. Living a balanced life – making time for exercise, leisure, work, a pint, meditation, play, sleep. And sometimes failing in any and all of it. Accepting that this is a journey and not a destination. THIS IS A JOURNEY AND NOT A DESTINATION. As such, there is no right way to get there or wrong way to get there, but simply whichever way I have come. It is the train ride, and not Vancouver or Saskatoon.