You Can Always Come Home - October 5, 2009

I have lived in Calgary for 6 years but only recently have I started calling Calgary home.  A year ago while working on the Juno Awards, a volunteer asked me “So how long have you lived in Calgary?”  I responded, “Oh, well I am new to Calgary, been here about 5 years” and she said “That really isn’t new anymore” and I realized that Calgary was now home.  

I love when people ask me what brought me to Calgary.  I smile coyly and say, Love.  I explain how my partner is an optometrist and wanted to practice in Alberta.   I don’t remember exactly what he said when he told me about his post-graduation Western plan but I do remember it wasn’t just about professional ambition that made Calgary attractive.  Jared had always pictured his life to be active and include activities like skiing, biking, hiking, and camping.  He had decided to choose a place to live where the life he wanted could be found on his doorstep.  He chose Calgary. 

This personal choice is probably the thing that made me first fall in love with Jared and I still speak about how I admire his clarity of what is really important in life.  Up to that point in my life, I had let my work define where I would live and I had settled by default in the Kitchener Waterloo (KW) area.  I was content.   I had a great job at the University of Waterloo (UW), I had started coaching and I had a large network of friends and family close by.  It was a good life.   Yet even before I met Jared I knew at some point I needed to leave KW.  I had grown up in KW.  I completed my degree at UW and then started working at UW just before graduation.   Although KW is a great area and personally and professionally things were very good I felt that I needed to experience life outside KW. I just needed the right reason to leave.   What better reason than love.

My friends and family were nervous when I made the decision.  This was my first serious relationship and Jared and I had been dating just over a year when I officially packed up my life and moved out West.  I took a few steps backward professionally to make the move and I had no friends or family in Calgary.  My friends and family in KW were nervous that I was giving up too much. That it would be too risky especially if it didn’t work out with Jared.  I wasn’t nervous and would respond to their concerns with “I can always come home.”     But their concern was still; would my life still be there for me to come home to?

 When I moved to Calgary I didn’t want to lose touch with my KW life.   I am so blessed to have a large network of close friends and a large family that I would see regularly in KW.   I knew if I wanted to maintain those important relationships, I would have to invest more than just phone calls and email if I was going to bridge the gap between the Eastern and Mountain Time Zones.  

I made a commitment to not miss any major event if possible.  That first year I flew back 4 times for weddings and once to surprise my parents for their 30th anniversary.  I remember on one trip I went to a wedding in the Toronto area on Saturday then flew to Montreal on Sunday morning to attend another wedding.  Monday morning I caught a flight back to Calgary to be at work for Tuesday.    On each trip home I would make an effort to see friends, have lunch or drinks with former colleagues, spend time with family and reconnect with the life I had when in KW.    I invested a lot of time coordinating plans and would often pack three weekends' worth of visiting into two days.   Although I couldn’t spend as much time visiting as I would like, I felt people always appreciated that at least I made the effort to see them.  With each investment of time, I felt the distance between Calgary and KW somehow got smaller. 

My work to keep my KW life alive wouldn’t end when I came back to Calgary.   I would constantly look for creative ways to invest in my relationships.  The first year I was in Calgary I sent digital scrapbooks back to my parents to highlight all the adventures I was having.    I would send birthday and anniversary cards to friends and family to let them know that I was thinking about them.   For weddings, showers, or holiday parties I would miss I always sent a gift.  If I found out that a former friend or colleague had reached a milestone, like when a former professor became the Dean of AHS, I would send a note of congratulations and describe the impact they had on me.  I was never expecting anything in return; I just genuinely wanted to keep in touch with my KW life.   I remember my financial planner looking at some of my costs for gifts and travel; he told me I could be investing those resources into RRSPs that would give me greater returns later on.  I explained to him I was investing the resources into relationships that are too valuable for me to lose.  He countered by telling me that I just flat out couldn’t afford it.   I stood firm and said, “I can’t afford not to.”

On September 26th, 2009, I hosted my first official fundraising event for the Alberta Cancer Foundation (ACF) and it was fitting that it happened at UW Homecoming.   Initiated by a former student leader I advised, Brenda Slomka, my faculty Applied Health Sciences (AHS) dedicated their Homecoming Fun Run to me and allowed me to fundraise for ACF.   Over 200 people participated in the race, a record for the annual event, and we raised over $6000 for Brain Cancer Research.    All this was achieved with barely 2 hours of work on my part to promote and organize the event.   It was a truly huge return for the very little investment that I felt I had put in.  

Although these metrics are incredible what is more powerful are the people who participated, either through attendance at the event or through a donation.  Professors, senior public school classmates, floor mates from the first year, high school student council members, colleagues I barely worked with, varsity athletes, res life staff, orientation leaders, and of course close friends and family.    Many of these participants I hadn’t seen in over a decade and yet they came; and at the risk of sounding arrogant, they came for me.   Even as I write this over a week after the event has ended, this demonstration of overwhelming support from my former life still brings tears of joy to my face. 

I have 5 Basic Principles of Leadership I try to personify day in, and day out.   I learned these principles from a mentor Catharine Scott at UW.  One of the principles is “Build and Maintain Constructive Relationships.”  At a party that was held for me in May my friend Nicole who I have known since Grade 1 said “Alyson is a master at making and keeping friends.  She is great at making an effort to get to know everyone who crosses her path, then does a fantastic job at staying in touch.”  It was one of the nicest compliments I have ever received and the first time I ever really acknowledged that I had this strength.   It’s rare that I give myself credit for accomplishments but I think the huge success we had on September 26th, as well as the outpouring of support I have been so blessed to receive, is definitely a reflection of the effort I put into building and maintaining my relationships.   

Maintaining relationships takes consistent effort.  It doesn’t have to be hard but it does have to be genuine.    When you build a relationship purely motivated by what the other person can do for you, you lose sight of what you can personally gain by doing for that other person.   Stephen Covey describes this concept as the “Emotional Bank Account” using the analogy that a relationship is like a bank account.  You can’t withdraw funds from a bank account until you make a deposit.  Likewise, you can’t expect people to support you unless you support them first. Moreover, making emotional deposits can also act like a savings account giving you investments of support you can withdraw to use in a time when you may make a big mistake or draw on when something unexpected happens, like finding out you have incurable brain cancer.   

Now by no means am I so arrogant to think the unbelievable support I receive can solely be credited to the trips home, cards, gifts, or other investments I make to maintain my relationships.  I believe you are the personification of the company you keep and I have done a very good job of surrounding myself with the best company.  However, I do believe all the actions I have taken to keep in touch with my KW life, especially since I have moved to Calgary, created a huge emotional savings account which allowed me to make an equally huge withdrawal on September 26th and will continue to provide the support I can withdraw when I need it.  

My life is now in Calgary.  The lifestyle Jared wanted when we moved here 6 years ago I am proud to say we are living.   I can honestly say I love living in Calgary, even on this October 4th morning when I woke up to snow falling.  We have a great network of friends here who have come together to help us through this very difficult period.   I know that these Western friendships will only get stronger over this journey and I know there is no shortage of emotional savings in our Calgary network.    I am very comfortable and happy to call Calgary home.

What I realized recently is that through maintaining such strong relationships I have been able to keep my home alive in KW.  Moreover, I have realized that home does not have to be an exclusive term that a person uses to only refer to the location in which they choose to make a life.    Home can really be anywhere you have invested in a relationship that is ready to support you.  Rather home is where there are people who will stand up for you when you need them.   I am proud of the life I have spent investing in the relationships which have resulted in homes all over the world I can always come home to.