New Year's Resolution No. 1: Concerning Living Situations

Winnipeg and I need some time apart, I think.

The city, over time, has become my co-dependent lover; or maybe it’s just the unrequited love that keeps stringing me along: this year, it’ll love me. Okay, maybe next. Or the one after? I always loved Winnipeg, but I stayed because I was afraid to leave. I was afraid of not knowing who I was without it.

But 2010 was an especially difficult time for us. It was the year that, due to work and aging and circumstances, a lot of my connections here came unglued. It was the year I lost my final scrap of faith that governments or politicians here might actually have real visions for the city and province. It was the year I realized that in a lot of ways, this city had lost its collective mind. (Two stories carry my byline. This is not coincidence;  editors adore dispatching me to make linguistic love to a zany story. The highlight of my 2010 writing career was a comment on the beer snake story saying I should write for the Onion. But I digress and yes, I realize I’m part of the problem, but my fidelity is to writing the hell out of whatever is put in front of me, first, and at any rate it’s not me that makes goofy stories get dozens of comments and sober, thoughtful stories on public policy a mere two.) And what was that epic Winnipeg Cat? “Hate the way things are, hate change more?” Yes.

So maybe it’s time to take a break from this terribly unhealthy civicosexual relationship, and  stop hating change, and start liking the way things are.

This is not to say I’m bailing on my Winnipeg, at least not immediately. I have unfinished business here. I still have a job, and perhaps — though confirmation is yet to follow — a job that may last well into 2011. I have a condo that desperately needs major renovations before it can sell. I still have some stories to tell here, some places to explore, some people to see and some ideas to devour.

But I think 2011 shall be the year I focus less on trying to get a foothold in Winnipeg, and focus more on going somewhere else, at least temporarily. Portland remains on the list; Coren is there now, of course. Maybe Toronto, possibly Vancouver. Or the pie-in-the-skies: Europe? Japan? Somewhere I can unwind and write (I have a book idea I’m hounding on, and it’s actually fiction, another sure sign my world as I know it is coming to an end) and transform from this scorned Winnipeg woman to some sort of beautiful blah blah blah butterfly.

So there you have it. New Year’s Resolution No. 1: become a city gal. Like Carrie Bradshaw, but , y’know, not quite so egregiously ignorant of my own privilege. Or so incredibly petty. Same shoes, though.