Yesterday I was at a barbecue at my friend Ollie's place. He and his wife Wendy have an eight year old. Another guest had two teenagers. Her sister flew in from Canada with her teenage son. A new family just arrived in town with two kids under six. I was the only one without kids. Some of them had been coming/living in this town for a decade or more by now. What struck me is that every single one of these people, at some point, decided they wanted something different and went after it. That's what put us all in the same garden. The opinions were all over the place. The stories were different, yet kind of similar. Most of us arrived here with a set of beliefs that had already been challenged. And most of us are still in the process of rebuilding, figuring out what we actually think now, with this new life and these new people around us. That process does something to you. It makes you more open to ideas you wouldn't have considered before. More patient. Less quick to judge. More willing to accept people exactly as they are. Not because anyone decided to be that way. Because the life here asks it of you. That's a skill you pick up when you choose to live differently. And it quietly makes your world bigger.

@Janice Turoczi what a great opportunity for you to come back home and not have to explain to people how it is, but to be able to show them by the growth and the experience that you've been a part of.