Leaving town

It just hit me. I have never lived anywhere as long as I have lived here. In fact, I have lived here more than half of my life. It has been almost 33 years since, in the spring of 1985, my husband Jeff and I headed to this tiny town on the shores of Lake Huron so that he could work at the nuclear power plant. He had just graduated from the University of Toronto, and we had been living in married student apartments, one block south of Yonge and Bloor. When we first arrived in Kincardine to find a place to live, we were walloped with culture shock. "It's a ghost town," I remember saying to him. "We'll only be here for a few years," he assured both of us. And here we are, half of our lives spent in the lakeside town. He worked at the plant until he was eligible to retire. I worked quite a few jobs - a KFC cook, a local correspondent for the Owen Sound Sun Times, a freelance journalist, a reporter and photographer for one of the weekly papers, a book store clerk, a Tim Horton's 'barista', an author and finally and most fun of all, a swimming instructor. My volunteer resume reads as equally varied - head of the toy library, baseball convenor, newsletter editor, props manager, producer and actor for the Theatre Guild, town swim team coach, high school swim team coach, every executive position for my Beta Sigma Phi chapter - and those are just the ones that come instantly to mind. I mention these because, as I prepare to leave and retire in a different urban centre, I realize that I have made more connections than I initially thought. We raised two sons here. They are both on their own now. We built a house and made it our own. It will be a sad day when we leave it. We had a total of 12 cats, although four of them were kittens we handed over to good homes. We now only have two. We have had good times and hard times. But we came out the other end, together. I find myself considering the word 'last'. I didn't realize that the last time I swam in the town pool, alone, that it was my last time. I wish I had known I would get so busy I wouldn't be back, and appreciated it more. I also didn't realize the last time I sat on my backyard swing, built lovingly for me by my husband, that I was doing that for the last time. Or swum in the lake. Or hiked on the trails. Or biked on the streets. Or weeded my tiny garden. That makes me melancholy. So, in the weeks leading up to our move, I am trying to pay more attention to my last times. Unless I return at some point in the future, the things I've been doing will be the last time I will do them. I had my last lunch with my former editor and friend. I had my last get together with my sorority sisters. I attended my last get together with the people I grew to consider my 'pool family'.

I have visited my favourite stores for the last time. Eaten in my favourite restaurants for the last time. Walked to the mailbox for the last time. Even as I get misty eyed over my lasts, I am certain the feelings I have for this place will last, however.

I have written a cozy mystery that is a love letter of sorts to this town. It will be followed by others, set in other towns in the area, a testimony to the effect living here has had. In a week, we move away from here. I will look at our home of 28 years for the last time, drive the roads of the town we called home for almost 33 years for the last time, and I will likely cry. But then I will look forward to making new memories and making a new place home.