Vancouver

My husband and I are planning to take our older daughter to Vancouver later this year. This city is special to me. I got to live there for a summer and a semester of high school when I was 14/15. My mother had met a man and we were going to move there to be with him and figure out a place to live later. Where we moved (at this point, five of us) to start with was the boyfriend's one-bedroom apartment off Commercial Drive near the Broadway skytrain station. For those unfamiliar with Vancouver's downtown, I will just say this is not (or at least at that time was not) the most idyllic area. And besides, his apartment was never going to fit all of us kids. My brothers stayed at my dad's on Vancouver Island, and my sister and I stayed in Vancouver.

It was a time in my life where I felt completely invincible so things that would scare me today just seemed like fodder for the memoir at the time. I would go explore the neighborhood as I went for my daily mars bar and cream soda run, truly no more interesting place to people watch. And with the skytrain being so close I used to travel around the city, down to Metrotown to wander the mall and window shop. My brothers and I even went to see No Doubt with the boyfriend that summer.

We all settled into a smaller town inside Metropolitan Vancouver for the fall. I loved high school there, the kids were fantastic, and the walk to school was a peaceful tree-lined trail. I love the rain, and I love the coast, so I was content. My mother had no qualms about me going downtown on the skytrain with friends so I rode the rail as often as I could. We would go downtown to Robson Street just to walk around, look in the stores, grab a Starbucks or a bubble tea. Vancouver is beautiful any time of year, but I loved being there over Christmas.

My mother had always pushed me towards modelling, so I started spending my time in gastown on the weekends, getting photos taken, doing a runway show, learning about working as a model and in commercials. It never went anywhere because we moved away by the time second semester started, a blessing looking back but a disappointment at the time. All these years later, the experience is fun to reflect on, especially the runway show, because some friends came with me. And I loved travelling through the city to get there. It felt electric. Like I would think living in a place like New York might be like.

That time of feeling free and alive, trusting in myself to figure out how to get to Lonsdale Quay or Granville Island or Pacific Centre....it never left me. Looking back on that experience...I have been lucky to keep some fantastic bonds with the friends I made there, one of which I got to see this past summer. And I also got to keep that sense of independence. I know deep down that I can be in a place I know nothing about and figure my own way around it.

When we take our girl there I doubt we will get a chance to take the skytrain and see the places where I spent time as a teen, but I hope to share the excitement of the city with her and enjoy the nostalgia. Hard to believe now as a mom that I wasn't much older than she is now, going off into the city on my own and finding my own way.

-Amanda