Dear Vancouver,

I know in the past I might have given you some reason to hope that someday I’ll leave Saskatchewan and settle here with you. I’ll admit it’s tempting. You are the very picture of a perfect place to live, all ocean and mountains and tall trees blowing in the breeze. Amazing shopping and eclectic neighbourhoods and an arts community I would give my right arm to be a part of. I had a good six years with you. Please don’t ever think I won’t cherish those memories forever. The last month, while a brief affair, has been a whirlwind of fun and excitement. I’ll give you that. Still, when it comes right down to it Regina is just better for me. I’m sorry. Really though, it’s not you, it’s me.

See, while you provide an exciting escape from the ordinary, Regina has always been there like an anchor keeping be grounded. While Regina might not be as attractive or fun or charming, it’s got a lot of really wonderful qualities that grow on you and grab hold when you least expect it. While you and I have overpriced martinis and overpriced shoes and an epic university experience together, Regina and I have shared so much more. I hesitate to go into the details that would only hurt you but you have to admit, you always knew this was coming. I was born on the prairies and grew up there and I hope Gaia will too. While you hold the majority of my urban family, Regina holds Gaia’s grandparents and her fun Uncle Cody and our friends who have babies just her age. I know it almost doesn’t seem fair when I put it like that. Regina is friendly and pleasant and easy to get around. I’m learning to love the Riders almost as much as I love the Canucks and someday soon I plan to learn to bake a Saskatoon Berry Pie. Now that I’m a mother my vast list of martini recipes just doesn’t seem as practical as it did three years ago.

Really though, it’s been great, it has. But if we’re gonna get right down to it. I hate the traffic. There, I said it. I hate sitting in the car for forty-five minutes with a screaming baby in the back seat while I wait to get onto the Lions Gate Bridge. I hate that it takes me over two hours to visit some of my friends. See, it’s not that they live two hours away, just that the insane traffic congestion means I’m idling for hours. How can people live like that? And seriously, would it kill you to improve your mood a bit? I mean, the sun shines everywhere else in Canada, do you think it’s a coincidence that dark clouds always hang over you? I’ve had it with the rain. I’ll take blistering cold winters in exchange for breezy, beautiful springs and blazing hot summers and crisp, colourful autumns any day. And another thing, are your Cheerios really so superior they need to be almost a dollar more expensive then on the Prairies? How can anyone afford to live here? How can anyone afford to raise their family here? I’ll tell you one thing. It’ll be a cold day in hell when I pay three hundred dollars for a pair of jeans for my twelve-year-old so she can fit in at school. Just like those jeans sometimes I feel like you’re all flash and no substance. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Plus, I know it’s vain, but it’s been bothering me all month that my new haircut has been hanging limply in my face and my skin is breaking out in protest to your summer humidity. Frankly, in contrast to Regina, I’d have to describe you as balmy. You’ve got to do the best with what you have and I’m sorry, I just can’t do balmy.

But I digress. I didn’t write this letter to point out all your flaws or make you feel like less of a city. For some people, people I know and love, you’re just the right fit. Still, I’m the type that likes to root for the underdog and find the magic where very few see it. And you know, sometimes I want to get groceries in my sweatpants and not stick out like a sore thumb. I want to build snowmen with my daughter in the winter and take pictures of her lost in a field of wheat and watch the way her face lights up the first time she sees a prairie sunset. I’m afraid if I stay with you I’ll miss all that and more while I’m leaning on the horn stuck in another traffic jam. The bottom line, if I can find one here, is that Regina makes me want to be a better (wo)man. It reminds me that life isn’t about how much you own or how much you spend or how big your condo is. When I’m with you I get all wrapped up in the details and forget the big picture. When my daughter is twenty she won’t care that her first lip gloss was Bonne Bell and not MAC or that we bought her clothes from Superstore instead of Aritzia or that she drank her first beer in a pickup truck in some field instead of sneaking into an overpriced club. She’ll remember that her family had a house full of big dogs that she chased in the back yard and looking out the window on a White Christmas and the vacations we’ll be able to afford because we won’t be living from paycheck to paycheck.

Oh Vancouver, you’re all glitz and sparkle and you get me every time but I’m a grown up now and I need to stop being distracted by shiny things. So there it is. I’m sorry. I hope we can still be friends. If not, well, you still have the Olympics and you know, that’s cool I guess.

All the Best, Risa