The First World Problems Of Living In Canada
Today is Canada Day and it’s a free day off work so YAAY!
I was born and grew up in a “nice” Canadian city. That’s the best thing I can say about it. It’s nice. There’s absolutely nothing I love here except that I live across the road from the city limits and I can be out of town in 25 footsteps.
It’s a very clean, modern, and urban city that seems to grow like a weed, despite its cyclical recessions.
Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve watched my city grow from a moderate-sized city to a 1.4 million-sized city. There’s nothing cultural here. Our biggest festival of the year is one of the world’s largest rodeos… the Calgary Stampede.
Our streets fill with pancakes, hay bales, and drunk people for the ten days of our world-class festival. If you’re not one of the drunk people who use the Stampede as an excuse to be drunk, all this festival does for you is cause traffic jams and force you to listen to country music.
Even our NHL hockey arena is called the Saddledome. Super classy.
Aside from that, we’re a landlocked oil city that slides in and out of recession regularly. I’d say our only redeeming quality is that we can drive to the Canadian Rockies in 45 minutes. The mountains are incredible, and that’s where I go every chance I get.
We have roughly eight months of winter, a good amount of spring and fall, and about three minutes of summer. It’s for the birds. But wait…..even the birds leave this city in winter.
One distinct feeling I’ve always had is that everywhere I’ve travelled has felt more like home than my actual home.
HOME should always be a place where I feel like I’m on vacation. However, I realize that no matter where I am, the vacation would soon give way to real life. But I crave “new.” I crave to be where no one knows me so I can start fresh with new people, new directions, and new discoveries.
I would give anything if HOME had some real soul. I feel like I was a child of a deep and diverse culture in a former life that I’ve never had the privilege of living. I feel that kind of soul in my bones and it’s part of who I am.
“Somewhere else” trapped me from the first time I went there, no matter where “there” has been.
Today is Canada Day. It’s a free day off work, so YAAY. I woke up to a beautiful, sunny, warm day, but believe me, it hasn’t always been this way.
In 2019, what I wanted for Canada Day and what my city gave me were two entirely different things.
I wanted to spend the evening outdoors, eating from food trucks, watching entertainment, and taking part in the celebration of my country’s confederation. But by late afternoon, the weather dropped about 20 degrees, the wind kicked up, and it was miserable.
On July 1, 2019, it literally felt like a cold winter day, with a temperature of 6 degrees Celsius. It ruined my attitude and my plans, as the weather always does here.
I wasn’t going to miss the epic Canada Day fireworks, though, so we changed our plans to indoor ones and decided we’d only stand outside when it was fireworks time. And believe me, we froze our asses off waiting for those fireworks.
All I could do was fantasize about getting home to a hot bath….on July 1…in the middle of summer.
While mashed into the Canada Day crowds, I made some interesting observations. A huge population of attendees appeared to be immigrants. It seemed there were far more citizens of different races and cultures than my own bland, white (entitled) Canadian status.
If they were indeed new Canadians, I wondered how they felt out there, celebrating the confederation of their new home. If they had arrived here from war-torn or third-world countries, they must be far more appreciative than I am.
Canada offers them safety, peace, comfort, and a future for their children. Things I take for granted because I was born here.
Canada offers them free healthcare and, more importantly, freedom. I bet the very last thing on their minds was the crappy, cold weather. Yet, there I was pouting over something as superficial as the temperature.
It’s just a number. Not a pleasant one, but still just a number.
At 11:05 pm, the fireworks started five minutes late. I was already cold and grumpy.
I remember laughing at myself, thinking, “This is the textbook definition of first-world problems. I’m out here complaining about the FREE entertainment starting late.”
It was a bit of an eye-opener and heart-opener for me. Perhaps I should just shut up about everything I dislike here, because there are millions of people somewhere else who wish for my fortunate place in the world.
Ever since that cold Canada Day in 2019, instead of sitting here counting all the things I dislike, I am mindful of the millions of new citizens who probably miss their homes but can’t go back. Because their homes don’t offer them what mine does.
Oh Canada. Happy 158th birthday.
Here’s THE ACTUAL BEST that Canada has to offer. If I were wealthy, I’d be living here:
Happy Canada Day -- and thank God and all her angels that there is still a bastion of freedom and welcome to the world's weary and storm-tossed, because it sure ain't 'Murica these days.
I think people like to 'complain' wherever they are! In Chicago, we're complaining about the weather whether it's freezing, yucky, sun-less winters, or too hot, humid or 2-minute summers/spring. I find traveling gives me the beauty of other places I've not experienced but still there's something about coming 'home' where ever that place is that feels like home.