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Where everyone knows your name

Every year around my birthday, I like to take stock of my life and what has happened the previous year and what I am grateful for.
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Every year around my birthday, I like to take stock of my life and what has happened the previous year and what I am grateful for. I find the timing of my birthday more useful that the false optimism of the New Year wherein I enthusiastically pledge to lose weight, write more often, file my columns early and clean up my basement.

My birthday is in early May and (most) of the snow has melted and the winter blahs are starting to dry up in the spring sunshine. It's a nice month for a birthday - for me, not for my husband because he gets the joy of buying me a gift for my birthday and then turning around and buying another one for Mother's Day. I usually am quite spoiled in May.

I am very grateful for the life that I have here and for the people in my city. I am grateful for new opportunities and for a space in which to reach out to my community. I am exceedingly grateful to live in the north and to be close to my family and friends.There is one thing that makes living in Prince George wonderful and strange: I can't go anywhere without running into someone I went to high school with.

If I am just running out to the store on the weekend on a lazy Sunday with unwashed hair, wearing ill-fitting jogging pants, you can guarantee that I will run into someone that I have not seen in twenty years. Usually, the people that I run into when I am looking my worst, are the ones look great and don't look like they've given up entirely.

I always thought that I would be one of those people that would remember everyone's first and last name from high school, years later. As it turns out, I'm not. Instead, I tend to make awkward eye contact with familiar-looking people and internally debate whether or not I approach them and say, "Did we go to high school together?"

When you live in a community like Prince George or any one of our neighbouring northern towns, every person is connected through one or two degrees. Guys I went to school with ended up working at one of the mills with my dad or brother, girls I went to school with ended up having kids at the same time as we did and now our kids go to school or dance together.

I was in a meeting at work and I looked out in a room full of professionals and catch sight of a friend of a friend who I haven't seen in two decades. "Oh, hey!" I said, ungracefully, interrupting myself in the middle of the meeting.

This is a normal occurrence in northern life. Everyone knows everyone and if they don't know you, they probably know your dad. I am thankful for this life and for another year in this community that is a bit like Cheers - everyone knows your name, or your parents, or at least, your face seems familiar.