My world changed a year ago while I was eating a breakfast muffin, drinking a dark roast, and waiting for my flight to Ontario at Kelowna Airport. Every cell in my body was screaming, “You are going the wrong way!” The thought of boarding a plane east felt as unnatural as what a cat must feel when someone rubs its hair from tail to head. The realization washed over me as I looked out the window at the blue sky and scrubby, sun-baked mountains.

Everything turned inside out, upside down, right around.

The pull had started. My poles were reversing. That overpriced condo in Toronto now seemed unreal. My mind exploded with electric epiphany, the sort of clarity that makes all contradictions shrink and scurry. I was supposed to be landing here in Kelowna, and I could envision driving back down Highway 97 to a place that felt like home after just one fantastic week.

Yes, I would do it. My mind was made up.

So began my decision in that super hot June last year to move west, to the breathtaking Okanagan. Many have either done this or dreamed of one day doing this, so I wasn’t breaking new ground. More than half of the people I have since met here are from somewhere else – within Canada – and have come here to turn their dreams into reality and live them.

It was my turn. Happiness awaited.

Tossing doubt into the garbage with my empty coffee cup and wrappings, I felt my reluctance to leave switch over and surge forward as enthusiasm. Back to Toronto. This was going to be so awesome. I just had to sell my condo and give my notice at work. Simple, right?

But happiness comes at a cost.

Reality had other plans. Yes, my happiness was waiting, but it was going to require some effort to go over and pick it up. Who thought that selling a condo located 5 minutes from the subway line in midtown Toronto would be so damn difficult?! After all, isn’t T.O. the centre of the universe? I wasn’t asking for much. I just wanted to get out!

Then the hard work started.

However, I will regale you with tales of my real estate woe later. Let’s backtrack from the what to the why. Few of us pull up stakes and move over 4,000 kilometres just on a whim, though it may’ve appeared that way to those who didn’t know how my life felt prior to June 2015.

My life in Toronto….