Australian Sliding Doors

It is sometimes difficult for me to reconcile to the fact that a country that played such an integral part in my coming of age; one that helped usher in my introduction to adult independence; the back drop for my eye-opening realization of how expansive and wondrous the world can be – was little more than a strange and fantastical land not even on my radar just over 20 years ago.

In 1996, Australia was a country at the bottom of the globe; it was a mystical and wild world where seasons and motorists ran amok to all that I knew, where kangaroos hopped freely and Crocodile Dundee hung his Outback hat.

Then I met a young man who was half-Australian and who had grandiose plans to travel across his father’s country after graduation. Somehow or other I ended up tagging along on this year-long sojourn. I must have been invited as anyone who knows me understands that I’m not the back-packing sort. The idea of heading half-way across the globe in order to live out of a bag (strapped to my back no less!) and subsequently spend a year looking for work and places to sleep isn’t enticing to me in the least.

Perhaps due to unabashed passion or because I do relish the idea of challenging myself, I accepted the invitation or dare and never looked back. In a heartbeat, I deferred my grad school plans, applied for and received a working visa, purchased a torso-sized backpack and against my parents’ wishes, hopped on a plane the day after Princess Diana died to head to the Land Down Under.

To say the following year was one of the best experiences in my life would be an under-statement.

I was welcomed with open arms by extended family who had never met me before, found work whenever it was required, saw sights I hadn’t realized existed and experienced a foreign country pretty much to the full-extent possible in the little time allocated to me.

And as I reflect on the 20 years since my first touch down in Oz, I realize how much of my life and the milestones that followed are coloured by Australia. Marital plans first got underway while I stood atop one of Australia’s most notable landmarks – Uluru (or Ayers Rock to the layman). As well, my first-born is named after the capital of South Australia.

As our family grew, it became even more of an urgency to introduce our children to this country that plays such an important role in their ancestry. And while it has never been an easy feat, through careful planning and saving we have managed to return a handful of times with children in tow.

Less than three weeks ago, during our most recent visit Down Under, I was sitting on the patio of the beach-front house we rented in the Gold Coast and I had an epiphany – a sort of sliding doors moment, if you will. For anyone unfamiliar with the sliding doors analogy, I’ll be brief. It refers to the sometimes seemingly inconsequential moments within a person’s life where a decision is made – to either go this way or that way – and as a result changing or perhaps forming one’s life path.

By sliding one door closed and in effect saying goodbye to what could have been, you slip through another and barrel towards what will be.

What if all those years earlier – before our lives had become weighed down with a mortgage and kids and all-consuming commitments like carpooling and music class and far-reaching routines like laundry-day Friday and grocery-shopping Thursdays – I had agreed to the idea of forsaking Canada in order to live a life Down Under? Back then, I was loathe to leave the country of my birth and subsequent life in order to head half-way around the world to set up shop in another country.

But what if?

What if we had decided to unfurl our still-packaged and unlived married life across the globe? And Canada became our home-away from home – a country we would scrimp and save to visit and reminisce about. A country where we would eagerly identify points of interest to our children when we visited. Perhaps our first-born would carry a moniker from this land – Victoria or Regina. Okay definitely not Regina!

What if all those years ago I hadn’t balked at the idea and had been more open to a challenge? Instead of focussing on how difficult (yet not impossible) it would be to maintain close and loving relationships with family and friends left behind in Canada and fretting the cost and energy associated with flights to and from – I took a different tack. Instead, I donned my rose-coloured glasses and was excited (even if a bit nervous) about moving to a country where Christmas was smack dab in the middle of summer and no one ever referred to Aussie winters as harsh.

Knowing then what I now know about life – that it’s short; that decisions should never be made out of fear; that the internet would make the world smaller – would I do things differently?

It would mean giving up all my current friendships forged through marriage and children and employment. But having an entirely different set made the same way – just in another country. There would still be happiness and joy and heartache and turmoil and gains and losses and celebrations – and the annoyances of everyday life – but they’d be Australian instead of Canadian.

In the closing of one door and opening of another, our Canadian families would be the ones we would eagerly anticipate seeing while sitting on a plane for 22 hours. They would be the ones we kept in touch with through email and Skype; the ones we’d get to know painstakingly through brief yet intense visits. They would be the ones we’d miss and feel wistful about at times and the ones we would hug long and tight with tears in our eyes when we left them to return to our faraway home.

And our Australian relatives would be the ones we’d return home to. They would be the ones we would talk to every day and who would be ordinary to us and we’d probably take for granted at times. The Aussie rellies would be the ones who would throw me my baby shower and who I would ring up when I had a bad day and who would meet me at the pub for a pint on a Friday night.

I once said to my then five-year-old son: “Boy am I lucky your sperm met your egg at just the right moment. Otherwise I’d have a different little boy.” And his answer was so starkly honest and unclouded by sentimentality: “It wouldn’t matter. Because you’d have another little boy to love. You wouldn’t even know me.”

So truthful that I could I just lay my head on my hands and cry about it.

Which just adds to life’s futility – I mean why cry over something that never was and never will be. Even so, there’s no real harm in indulging in a bit of sliding doors mentality from time to time as long as it’s all in good fun with no genuine regret involved. Just a wistful reminder of the choices one has made, the opportunities one has taken . . . and not taken – in order to get to this specific pinpoint in time.

While sitting on a patio overlooking a beautiful expanse of Pacific ocean, for a split second I wondered what if – and then it was gone. What ifs can be maddening because they are hopeless and empty. There is only what is. And for me, what is is pretty wonderful too.