Thursday, March 15, 2007

Home on the range

The CaRMS dust has settled, and the oracle has spoken our fate: Calgary! Urban Family Medicine! A huge surprise for everyone, I know. But it's now official - as of July 1, I will be a Family Medicine Resident: a doctor, and now almost a Family doctor.

We're very happy. Up until the weekend before my CaRMS rank order had to be submitted, I was certain that I would rank Lethbridge at the top of my list. There seemed to be a lot of plusses: home-call, better preceptor ratios, shorter commute, cheaper houses... But driving home on a Sunday night, I realized that in my heart I was already planning the move back to Calgary at the end of the two years. I was driving streets that I knew by heart - streets that comfort me, that I've known since I was a kid. If I was already missing Calgary, before even having left, then why leave? This is my home - this is my family's home, and it's actually sort of a wonderful realization that I have a home: a corner of the world that I know and love, that for all it's quirks and flaws I sympathize with... this city is a part of me. My girl's grandparents, and aunts and uncles and cousins are all here. Very few people in our culture are blessed with such a sense of family, such wonderful support - a real sense of the gens.

So we're ecstatic to be staying in our lovely little house. Near our Fish Creek, Edworthy, Big Hill Springs, Bowness, and Brown-Lowry parks; near Kananaskis; near Fair's Fair and the Uptown; near Chianti's and Moughal Mahal; near the Center street bridge; near Peter's and Greco's; near T&T and Dragon City; near Chinook Center (yikes!) and 17th avenue on a summer night; near the Stampede and the Round-up Center; near the beavers at North Glenmore; near Heritage Park and the Zoo. And I think, more than ever before, I've recognized how precious a sense of home is.

After this, I don't think there'll be any moves for the Larsens. Sure we'll travel and see all those places we'd like to (including, oh please, the Mayan Riviera again), but this is where we'll be. The Larsens are officially at home!
Oh, also I got my laptop fixed. 600 bucks, all warranty, 2 weeks before it expired! Huzzah!