Emily
On a sunny October afternoon, Sophie and I headed to SW Calgary to meet up with a fellow Leeds gal who had been kind enough to talk to us about her reasons for moving across the world.
Like us, Emily had just recently left the comfort of Yorkshire for an exciting, and highly anticipated new challenge in Canada's wild mountains. Having grown up in the same city, Sophie and I were eager to see if we had any connections or mutual friends, and to hear our first northern accent in two weeks since landing in Canada!
We met Emily at a cafe she suggested called Purple Perk on 4th Street SW and got chatting straight away. We had already been talking for ten minutes about home before I even remembered to turn my dictaphone on and begin the interview.
Curious to see how similar our reasons were for establishing ourselves in Alberta, I began by asking Emily about her decision to come to Canada. It turned out that this had actually been a dream of her's for a few years after being offered a job out here: "I didn't really think about the visa situation, I was like 'yeah I'll apply a few months in advance, I'll get a visa and it'll be fine'. Obviously we all know that's not the way it happens." Emily was upset not to get her visa and subsequently the job, as it meant a big change in her plans for the foreseeable future. This failed to deter her desire to see Canada however, "I was so determined like 'I really want to go, I need to go'. I already had a plane ticket so my friend said just come to visit anyway because I was gutted, so I came and just loved it!" On this first visit to Canada, Emily stayed with a friend of her's, Garrett, who lives in Calgary but she'd met whilst travelling in Asia. When we met her she was living in his family home until she found her feet. "I then spent two years trying to get the visa because I got rejected the first time. Then, ironically, I was on the waiting list and got offered it whilst I was visiting in September a few years back, I wasn't checking my emails though so the offer expired whilst I was in Canada! I eventually got it the year after so it was a long process! I'm absolutely buzzing to be here now."
Starting her adventure in Calgary, I asked what it was that attracted her to the city, "I was originally going to go straight to Vancouver but then I thought I'm going to turn up in a city by myself, not know where I'm living and not have a job, I think that might be a bit overwhelming. So instead I'm starting in Calgary where I've got friends, cause I've been a few times, and I get to see Garrett which is nice. I'm going to start here and then maybe move onto try and do a ski season and then go to Vancouver in April. Really weirdly, I met a girl at a festival a few months ago who was a friend of a friend, who was like 'yeah I'm moving to Vancouver in April' and she's so sound! I just thought this is working out perfectly! So I think we're going to try live together cause Vancouver's a bit expensive."
Sophie and I found there were quite a few similarities between Emily's plans/ambitions and our own, so I asked her to elaborate on why she was here: "I'm here because I'm 23, I didn't feel like staying at home, I finished uni and got into a job and I don't really have a passion, so this feels like the time to go and do it. The time to focus on myself and be alone. I know it's going to be really hard, and it has been I'm not going to lie. I've got Garrett but he's let me get on with everything myself. I wanted to sort of challenge myself by being fully independent. I finished uni and just went back to living at home, so all the stuff I was doing independently at uni my Mum started doing again. So this is the first time I've paid to live somewhere by myself, sorted everything myself, tried to get a job at the same time. It has all been a bit overwhelming but I feel like I need to do it, like I need to grow up and this is a really nice place to do it." This all resonated so closely with my own motives for removing myself to the mountains, it reassured me I wasn't the only one who felt they needed to rise our chosen adversity. Emily noticed our shared hopes for our adventure here, "My plan is fairly similar to you really, to travel and see as much of Canada as possible, do something different for a year. I think it's going to make me more confident, knowing I've done this by myself."
I found it incredibly strange leaving university and not really having a clear view of my future to chase. You can chose any path for your life that you should like, but when presented with say the next 60 years or so and to be spoilt with possibilities, that freedom can be blinding. I really struggled with it and after university had multiple existential crises because I was scared by the indecision I was experiencing. Travel was the only option that made sense to me; to remove myself from what I knew and the comfort of my natural habitat in the hope that I'd find the horizon I want to spend my life chasing. Sink or swim, basically. I explained this to Emily and she empathised with me, "I think it'll probably shape, massively, what you want to do. You put yourself in these situations, you never know who you're going to meet, or what kind of experience you're going to have. It'll give you that 'that's what I want to do'. That's what I'm hoping for anyway!" This interview was starting to feel more and more like a therapy session for the two of us than I had anticipated.
Emily gave me the impression she had done a fair bit of travelling in her life already, so I asked her about the trip to Asia she had mentioned earlier in the interview, "[I travelled round Asia] when I was 19, a good couple of years ago, but it was great, I really enjoyed it. I met loads of people, I went with my best friend at the time and her friend, Ellie, who she's known since childhood. We all became super close and best mates. We did Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, but Vietnam was my favourite by far. If you get a chance to go, that's an amazing place. We went to Hôi An, that was the best because there were bits of Vietnam that were really crowded, a bit dirty, a bit overwhelming, a lot of pick-pockets. But then we went there, you know when you see pictures of people wearing those hats on the river? that's genuinely what it's like; all open space, absolutely beautiful."
Emily, like all good travellers, was curious; she asked me about the other people I'd spoken to for this project and what I wanted to get out of it. I told her how lovely it had been so far, even though I'd only spoken to a few people, and that everyone had different reasons and aspirations for their wanderings. I told her about Jules and her pursuit of a place to belong to, a feeling Emily said she could empathise with; "She's probably articulated that a lot better than I could have, but that's exactly how I feel. I love my family, I love my friends, but never felt necessarily a sense of belonging. It's not like I'm a loner or a weirdo *laughs* the people I met at uni were great but I didn't love my course and I don't really feel like I've got a calling in the UK. I always feel like people are slightly pretentious, and Leeds where I'm from, again I love it but everyone's moved on from there. But I feel like where would I move on to? I don't know where I would belong and what I would do. I'm not saying I'll always stay here, you know I've not got a crystal ball, but I've always said if I like it here I'll consider it. Before you come here everyone says you'll come and meet your husband!" This was something Sophie and I could totally relate to, I can't tell you how many times my friends and family told me I'd end up 'meeting a boy and staying in Canada forever'. If I had a pound for every time...
As you'd expect this was followed by a little gossiping about friends of ours who have got married recently and how our lives are all entering different stages. It's a completely natural process; the same path won't be the right one for everyone and we all have the freedom to chose our direction, so of course your road will contrast drastically to other people's. Emily saw it like this: "I'd put it into three; the people who go into a corporate job and are very career focused, there's the people who start settling down, then the people who don't really know what they want and I'm in that category. I don't necessarily fit into the other two and I can see that my friends do." I speak from my own experiences here as I feel like I also belong to the third category, it's very easy to feel disconcerted when you start to compare your progress to your friends in the other two categories. You see them moving forward when you feel stuck, taking action when you feel indecisive, they're happy where they are and you're feeling restless. You have to remind yourself to go with your gut and to trust your instincts, you'll find they're sharper than you think. I felt Emily had a strong enough sense of what she needed to do to find her path, and that she wouldn't stop until she found it, "I think it's really important not to hang around with other people necessarily. I've always lived with my Mum who's a lovely person and I've always tried to make her happy. Whereas now this is my time to focus on exactly what I want. I feel like this is the time to establish myself, even if it's in a bit of a scary situation!". Good for you, Emily.
We spent the rest of the afternoon telling tales and talking about the challenges that faced us in the next few months. Emily's friend Garrett joined us a little later on and we stayed talking till the early evening when Sophie and I headed back to the HI hostel before our journey to Banff the next day. It had been a pleasure talking to Emily and I feel like it gave the three of us a chance to talk out our anxieties about the future. I can't thank Emily enough for being so honest with me and talking so plainly about her reasons for coming here, especially as we had only briefly spoken on Facebook prior to meeting up that day!
I hope you all enjoyed reading Emily's story, here's to the next one!
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Like us, Emily had just recently left the comfort of Yorkshire for an exciting, and highly anticipated new challenge in Canada's wild mountains. Having grown up in the same city, Sophie and I were eager to see if we had any connections or mutual friends, and to hear our first northern accent in two weeks since landing in Canada!
We met Emily at a cafe she suggested called Purple Perk on 4th Street SW and got chatting straight away. We had already been talking for ten minutes about home before I even remembered to turn my dictaphone on and begin the interview.
Curious to see how similar our reasons were for establishing ourselves in Alberta, I began by asking Emily about her decision to come to Canada. It turned out that this had actually been a dream of her's for a few years after being offered a job out here: "I didn't really think about the visa situation, I was like 'yeah I'll apply a few months in advance, I'll get a visa and it'll be fine'. Obviously we all know that's not the way it happens." Emily was upset not to get her visa and subsequently the job, as it meant a big change in her plans for the foreseeable future. This failed to deter her desire to see Canada however, "I was so determined like 'I really want to go, I need to go'. I already had a plane ticket so my friend said just come to visit anyway because I was gutted, so I came and just loved it!" On this first visit to Canada, Emily stayed with a friend of her's, Garrett, who lives in Calgary but she'd met whilst travelling in Asia. When we met her she was living in his family home until she found her feet. "I then spent two years trying to get the visa because I got rejected the first time. Then, ironically, I was on the waiting list and got offered it whilst I was visiting in September a few years back, I wasn't checking my emails though so the offer expired whilst I was in Canada! I eventually got it the year after so it was a long process! I'm absolutely buzzing to be here now."
Starting her adventure in Calgary, I asked what it was that attracted her to the city, "I was originally going to go straight to Vancouver but then I thought I'm going to turn up in a city by myself, not know where I'm living and not have a job, I think that might be a bit overwhelming. So instead I'm starting in Calgary where I've got friends, cause I've been a few times, and I get to see Garrett which is nice. I'm going to start here and then maybe move onto try and do a ski season and then go to Vancouver in April. Really weirdly, I met a girl at a festival a few months ago who was a friend of a friend, who was like 'yeah I'm moving to Vancouver in April' and she's so sound! I just thought this is working out perfectly! So I think we're going to try live together cause Vancouver's a bit expensive."
Sophie and I found there were quite a few similarities between Emily's plans/ambitions and our own, so I asked her to elaborate on why she was here: "I'm here because I'm 23, I didn't feel like staying at home, I finished uni and got into a job and I don't really have a passion, so this feels like the time to go and do it. The time to focus on myself and be alone. I know it's going to be really hard, and it has been I'm not going to lie. I've got Garrett but he's let me get on with everything myself. I wanted to sort of challenge myself by being fully independent. I finished uni and just went back to living at home, so all the stuff I was doing independently at uni my Mum started doing again. So this is the first time I've paid to live somewhere by myself, sorted everything myself, tried to get a job at the same time. It has all been a bit overwhelming but I feel like I need to do it, like I need to grow up and this is a really nice place to do it." This all resonated so closely with my own motives for removing myself to the mountains, it reassured me I wasn't the only one who felt they needed to rise our chosen adversity. Emily noticed our shared hopes for our adventure here, "My plan is fairly similar to you really, to travel and see as much of Canada as possible, do something different for a year. I think it's going to make me more confident, knowing I've done this by myself."
I found it incredibly strange leaving university and not really having a clear view of my future to chase. You can chose any path for your life that you should like, but when presented with say the next 60 years or so and to be spoilt with possibilities, that freedom can be blinding. I really struggled with it and after university had multiple existential crises because I was scared by the indecision I was experiencing. Travel was the only option that made sense to me; to remove myself from what I knew and the comfort of my natural habitat in the hope that I'd find the horizon I want to spend my life chasing. Sink or swim, basically. I explained this to Emily and she empathised with me, "I think it'll probably shape, massively, what you want to do. You put yourself in these situations, you never know who you're going to meet, or what kind of experience you're going to have. It'll give you that 'that's what I want to do'. That's what I'm hoping for anyway!" This interview was starting to feel more and more like a therapy session for the two of us than I had anticipated.
Emily gave me the impression she had done a fair bit of travelling in her life already, so I asked her about the trip to Asia she had mentioned earlier in the interview, "[I travelled round Asia] when I was 19, a good couple of years ago, but it was great, I really enjoyed it. I met loads of people, I went with my best friend at the time and her friend, Ellie, who she's known since childhood. We all became super close and best mates. We did Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, but Vietnam was my favourite by far. If you get a chance to go, that's an amazing place. We went to Hôi An, that was the best because there were bits of Vietnam that were really crowded, a bit dirty, a bit overwhelming, a lot of pick-pockets. But then we went there, you know when you see pictures of people wearing those hats on the river? that's genuinely what it's like; all open space, absolutely beautiful."
Emily, like all good travellers, was curious; she asked me about the other people I'd spoken to for this project and what I wanted to get out of it. I told her how lovely it had been so far, even though I'd only spoken to a few people, and that everyone had different reasons and aspirations for their wanderings. I told her about Jules and her pursuit of a place to belong to, a feeling Emily said she could empathise with; "She's probably articulated that a lot better than I could have, but that's exactly how I feel. I love my family, I love my friends, but never felt necessarily a sense of belonging. It's not like I'm a loner or a weirdo *laughs* the people I met at uni were great but I didn't love my course and I don't really feel like I've got a calling in the UK. I always feel like people are slightly pretentious, and Leeds where I'm from, again I love it but everyone's moved on from there. But I feel like where would I move on to? I don't know where I would belong and what I would do. I'm not saying I'll always stay here, you know I've not got a crystal ball, but I've always said if I like it here I'll consider it. Before you come here everyone says you'll come and meet your husband!" This was something Sophie and I could totally relate to, I can't tell you how many times my friends and family told me I'd end up 'meeting a boy and staying in Canada forever'. If I had a pound for every time...
As you'd expect this was followed by a little gossiping about friends of ours who have got married recently and how our lives are all entering different stages. It's a completely natural process; the same path won't be the right one for everyone and we all have the freedom to chose our direction, so of course your road will contrast drastically to other people's. Emily saw it like this: "I'd put it into three; the people who go into a corporate job and are very career focused, there's the people who start settling down, then the people who don't really know what they want and I'm in that category. I don't necessarily fit into the other two and I can see that my friends do." I speak from my own experiences here as I feel like I also belong to the third category, it's very easy to feel disconcerted when you start to compare your progress to your friends in the other two categories. You see them moving forward when you feel stuck, taking action when you feel indecisive, they're happy where they are and you're feeling restless. You have to remind yourself to go with your gut and to trust your instincts, you'll find they're sharper than you think. I felt Emily had a strong enough sense of what she needed to do to find her path, and that she wouldn't stop until she found it, "I think it's really important not to hang around with other people necessarily. I've always lived with my Mum who's a lovely person and I've always tried to make her happy. Whereas now this is my time to focus on exactly what I want. I feel like this is the time to establish myself, even if it's in a bit of a scary situation!". Good for you, Emily.
We spent the rest of the afternoon telling tales and talking about the challenges that faced us in the next few months. Emily's friend Garrett joined us a little later on and we stayed talking till the early evening when Sophie and I headed back to the HI hostel before our journey to Banff the next day. It had been a pleasure talking to Emily and I feel like it gave the three of us a chance to talk out our anxieties about the future. I can't thank Emily enough for being so honest with me and talking so plainly about her reasons for coming here, especially as we had only briefly spoken on Facebook prior to meeting up that day!
I hope you all enjoyed reading Emily's story, here's to the next one!
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