Kill Your Darlings

Much of what I do these days reminds that I’m drawing closer to the last time I’ll do these things.

Our move from the Bow Valley is drawing in. We’ve started packing our things, and yesterday we received the building permit and submitted all of our paperwork to the bank for financing. On Monday the builder will put the first shovel into the ground, and then the ball is definitely rolling.

When I first wrote that we are leaving Canmore, I mentioned that we are also leaving a level of comfort few would ever turn their backs on. To live in Canmore is an out-of-reach dream for most who visit here, and when I mention to those that don’t live here that we’ve decided to leave they are astonished. We own our condo and were fortunate enough to purchase before housing really became bloated; I have a job that most in the industry would envy and while not bringing home massive bank, I’m compensated sufficiently that we can pay our bills. I have singletrack trail literally twenty metres from my front door. We’ve made it, we’re living the dream. So why isn’t that enough? Why risk it all and fly into the unknown?

There are several answers to these questions of course. The obvious reason would be that we’re trying to make more time and space for us to invest our energy into other passions like writing, and growing and making food, to live life at a slower, more centered pace. Outside of the Bow Valley we can own and garden a little piece of property and hopefully become a little less reliant on financing our lives through external work. We’re excited to explore new geography and to experience life outside of Canmore’s incredibly comfortable but pampered cultural bubble. And that last point, although manifesting itself only in the background of our lives, is I think one of the more powerful motivations. It’s time for us to kill our darlings.

In writing there is a theory that every writer needs to learn to kill their darlings. When we fall in love with a character we’ve created, or a turn of phrase we think is brilliant, or a storyline that has a particular hold on us, we have to be prepared to cut them from the work if they are holding it back. That sounds easy, but it’s a lot more difficult to do than one would think.

Life in the Bow Valley is one of my darlings. I could live with it indefinitely, coveting my time here, but there’s something about it that at this point in my life is holding me back.

There’s a great big world out there, and I need to be in it. Not for a vacation, but to be fully immersed.

I hope I like it.