Living Where I Live

When I first came to Prince Edward Island, I told myself I was chasing a dream. I came to live a quieter, simpler life surrounded by animals and open space. But the truth is, I was running.  Running from grief, from emptiness, from the unbearable ache of losing my daughter, Amanda.

The Island felt like refuge. And in many ways, it was. I poured myself into farm life. Renovating the barn, raising alpacas, learning fibre, building something from scratch. From the outside, it looked wholesome and brave. From the inside, it was mostly motion. I kept busy enough not to feel.

Then I built a business on top of it. And, for good measure, two years in, I added a full-time job too. I told myself it was necessary - that this was what I needed - but it was really just more running. There’s a certain safety in exhaustion; when every minute is spoken for, there’s no room left for your heart to speak.

The Art of Distraction

For years, that pattern worked. The farm grew. The business flourished. Tourists came by the carloads, and I shared with them the magic of PEI life. I told them how it moves at a slower pace, how you can sit on your porch on a sunny afternoon and simply enjoy the day. I’d smile and tell them that back “home” in Ontario, people might call that wasting time.

And yet… even as I said it, I knew I wasn’t living that truth myself. I was selling the peace I couldn’t find. I loved welcoming people here - truly - but most of those connections were fleeting, like footprints in sand. They came, they smiled, we chatted, they left. And I went back to my lists. My animals. My dye pots. My next deadline.

It was easier to stay in motion than to stand still long enough to feel the emptiness that running had built around me.

When I moved here, I told people I was chasing a simpler, more honest life... and I believed that’s what I was doing. But looking back, it wasn’t simplicity I was living; it was survival. I think I spoke those words as a kind of hope, a way of naming the life I wanted before I actually knew how to live it.

Maybe that’s why this place kept calling me back to itself... because it knew what I didn’t. That simplicity isn’t about how you live on the outside; it’s what happens when you finally stop long enough to let your inside catch up.

The Transition

Two years ago, I moved to part-time work at my day job.  I called it my “phased retirement.” I thought it would give me more space, but I simply filled it. More tours. More projects. More goals. The illusion of progress kept me safe.

Then, this past April, I retired fully from the day job. No more dual worlds. Just the farm. Just the business. Just me.

And that’s when things began to shift. With the noise dialed down, I found myself standing in a silence that felt unfamiliar at first... uncomfortable even. But slowly, it began to feel like breathing again.

Maybe I’d known these truths for years: that busyness had been my armour, that work had kept me safe from what I didn’t want to feel, and that peace only arrives when you stop running long enough to let it find you. But this was the first time I’d given myself the stillness to actually face them.

Learning to Stand Still

I closed Sundays this summer... not to play tourist, but to finally have time to live where I live. To see the Island not through the lens of someone constantly explaining it, but as someone who belongs to it. I visited beaches I’d only ever driven past, wandered farm stands, and watched the light move across the pastures in the evening.

This fall, I went one step further and closed both Sundays and Mondays. A real weekend. Space. Time to think. To breathe. To refill the creative well I hadn’t realized had run dry.

Outside by myself is where I feel most alive and content. It grounds me in a way that work never could.

This past Monday marked the eighteenth anniversary of Amanda’s passing. I don’t like to count time... not when it comes to Amanda. Every year brings new realizations, but this one felt heavier, more fragile somehow. The next twelve months will be the last of the days where living with her outnumbers the days she’s been gone. Next year will be nineteen years.  She was twelve days past her nineteenth birthday when she passed. I have been dreading that milestone for years.

I can’t think about it for long. It’s too big. Too final. But it lingers at the edge of everything I do. Maybe that’s part of why I’ve finally stopped running. Because you can’t outrun love, or loss.

The Gift of Presence

I’ve come to see that I wasn’t just running from loss.  I have been running from stillness. Because stillness makes you listen. It asks you to face what hurts and what heals.

Now, when I tell guests that life on PEI moves at a slower pace, I finally understand what that means. It isn’t about idleness. It’s about presence. About choosing to stand still long enough to let the place... and the moment... catch up to you.

I’m still learning. But I think that’s what living where I live really means.

Living It Forward

This Island gave me space to survive, and now it’s teaching me how to live. I didn’t come here to find perfection. I came here to find peace... even if it took me years of running in circles to see that it was waiting for me all along.

Maybe that’s the real lesson: you don’t arrive all at once. You arrive in moments ... in breaths, in sunsets, in the sound of alpacas humming in the field.

And perhaps the lesson for all of us is to live where we live ...  in whatever form that takes. To meet ourselves where we are, and allow peace to find us there.

Thank you for being part of my journey... for walking beside me through the busy seasons and the quiet ones.

And.... may moments of peace find us all today, and every day 💜💜💜

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Written from the pasture at Green Gable Alpacas.