What This Town Gave Me

It would be a complete lie if I said that I never get jealous. I get jealous when I can’t afford the things I dream of, I get jealous when I hear about engagements, I get jealous when friends hang out without me. It’s a natural human thing, to be envious. But lately, I’ve been really jealous seeing people from high school successful in the lifestyle they want. With spouses, kids, the 2-door-garage-house, the travel-all-over-the-world, the amazing-life-experiences, the mentality that they know exactly what they want, and have it. I burn with envy because they are there, and I am here. They are doing amazing things and I feel like I’m doing passable things. Sure, it would be so clique and easy to say, “Someday you will too”, but why can’t that someday be NOW? I want to do amazing things NOW. Not tomorrow, not in 3 or 5 years, right freaking now. But wait….I don’t really have any excuses not to do amazing things now. Some would say (and have said to me plenty of times), “Oh, just wait until you get out of this town and you’ll be amazing too”, or my favorite, “Oh you’re still in this town? Oh…that’s great”. But that made me think about “this town", and then I looked deep into my memories of all the things I’ve done and been able to do because of “this town”…

Caronport has been like the best friend that you don’t appreciate enough. I was a shy, insecure girl who stepped into the doors of this place in the fall of 2005 in grade nine, thinking that leaving the comfort zone of familiarity was a mistake. CHS taught me that my life is not just about me, but about serving others. Experiences like Tour Choir taught me that music is a tool and gift to bless everyday people with. I met and cultivated relationships with people that I still connect with today. And it broke my shell of insecurity where I now bask in the beautiful sunshine of confidence. I was reminded today from a friend from CHS that we used to have a certain job on Tour Choir, and then it flooded my mind with memories of fun, of life-learning lessons, of sharing love with others, and it made my heart so joyful. I’ve done great things already, they were within my four years at CHS, I just didn’t realize it at the time. I was doing amazing things, I was building the blocks of who I would become.

I then decided that a continuation of learning in “this town” would be worthwhile. CHS was already an amazing journey, I’m sure that Briercrest would be the same. I was wrong, it wasn’t the same. It was world-shattering. It was way beyond the horizon of what I thought I would learn in another four years in this town. I felt like I found my calling in life, singing. I knew that this ability I was blessed with was a gift to use to bring joy and love to all people, to build bridges to everyone in the world. I remember my second year I was in Resonant and we were on a choir tour in Lethbridge. The end of the weekend tour, we sang at an elderly home for severe cases. It was likely that most of the people in the audience would be gone in weeks, months, days, we didn’t know. But we did know that at that moment, when we sang the Irish Blessing and laid our hands on some of the elderly as a way of blessing them, they in fact blessed us in more ways than I thought possible. That was an amazing thing that I did, because of this town. Because of Caronport, I was able to go on a life-changing trip to NYC to sing in Carnegie Hall. If I would have left to go somewhere else, I would have missed that journey which is something I wouldn’t trade for all the wanderlust in the world.

One main thing though, that this town did for me that I don’t think about often enough is the relationships I’ve made because of this town. I could go on and on about how the music changed me, about how I learned so much about the Bible, things about the world which is all amazing, but the relationships I made are much more important. I’ve made life-long friends, friends who are just as close to me as blood-relations. I have friends who I’ve laughed with, wept with, bared my soul with, learned life-lessons with, because of “this town”. I may have not traveled a lot, but I’ve traveled with friends into the depths of the heart, into the soul of life, creating fun memories doing things on a scale from meaningless to meaningful. And isn’t that what we are called to do? I am called to love others, something this town taught me. I’ve learned to value all relationships with respect and love. That is something amazing, something so worthwhile.

Yes, I might have not left this town yet, and maybe I won’t for a while. Perhaps I am a “lifer”, but if I would have left years ago, I would not be who I am today. I may not be rich, I may not be in a serious romantic relationship, I may never travel to the ends of the earth but I have done things that have changed my life, right here on the prairies. The last place you’d expect. And now I get to pour out the things I've learned to my voice students, I get to light a spark of passion of learning, life, and music in them that this town gave to me. Thinking about it all now, I’m not jealous anymore. I’m grateful.