When Most People Settle Down, We Packed Up

At seventy, plenty of people are settling into the gentle routines of later life — tracking senior discounts, taking longer morning walks, or becoming surprisingly fierce about where the best cup of coffee in town can be found. But instead of settling in, Sheila and I did something decidedly less sensible: we packed up fifty years of life and moved to another country.

A Morning Oatmeal Epiphany

The idea didn’t arrive in a flash of drama. It floated into the room one early morning as we sat over breakfast — oatmeal, which apparently becomes mandatory after age sixty. Sheila looked up and asked, almost carefully, “What if we moved to Victoria?”

I assumed she meant Victoria the person, perhaps someone she’d met in a local cafe while chatting about scones. But no — she meant the city. The one perched on the edge of the Pacific on that big land mass, Vancouver Island. Full of harbor lights, cruise ships, major industries,  history, and more bakeries specializing in butter tarts and sausage rolls than anyone truly needs. (But boy, are they tasty!)

A Whisper I Didn’t Expect to Hear

Sheila left Canada in 1969 with a teenager’s urgency — chasing possibility southward with the wind at her back. For more than half a century she built a life with me in California: our son, and routines worn smooth by repetition. But somewhere along the way, the country she’d left began tugging at her gently, not with nostalgia but with something quieter, yet forceful,  like an ocean tide. A tide that rolled closer and higher with each wave. 

What surprised me was how quickly I felt it grab me too. As the water deepened it pulled us both along.

There’s a clarity that arrives with age — not always pleasant, but honest. Noise becomes harder to ignore. Pace becomes harder to maintain. And the longing for stillness, for a place that breathes instead of pushes, begins to hum beneath everything.

We weren’t running from America; we have lived fulfilling, happy ives there, with our family and friends. Yet now, we felt curious about something different. Pulled by an outgoing tide. 

The Moment Victoria Chose Us

So we visited Victoria at the beginning of the year, expecting Old Man Winter might dissuade us. Even though we knew no one there, we expected it had the closest climate to California. The very moment we stepped off the ferry into the harbor air — crisp, salty, carrying something like memory in its edges — a shift happened. When I looked around, it really felt like a new world. The city shimmered with a kind of old-world gentleness. It felt lived-in, yet conscious of how she looked: steady, generous. The afternoon air was clean, almost pristine. And Sheila, standing there in the soft coastal light, didn’t look like a visitor. She looked reclaimed. I saw that glimmer of a teenager I first met so many years ago.

That’s when I knew in the gentle February rain of Victoria, we were about to take another leap of faith together.

Downsizing: An Archaeological Dig of the Heart

We returned home and excavated fifty years of accumulated life together, discovering that downsizing is less a household task than an emotional dig site. We had more than things hidden in boxes, old favorite tee shirts and “Best Father Ever” handmade coffee cups.  They were just a few of the surprises. 

Sheila pointed out, we were sparing our son from needing a shovel, gloves, and a strong drink to clear our closets and cupboards. I wasn’t so sure. The payoff: fewer things to trip over now and a noticeably cozier life while we’re still upright enough to enjoy it. We argued over what mattered, rediscovered objects we didn’t remember buying, donated more than we kept—and then ran headlong into immigration paperwork, a bureaucratic experience that should be classified as an endurance sport. More on that later.

Handing Over the Keys to Our Old Life

But eventually the pieces fell into place. We rented out our house. Packed what remained of our lives into a moving pod. And one afternoon, we gathered up our dogs, handed the keys over to our home and got into the car to head North. Four days later we were on a ferry to cross the border.

Sheila stepped back into the country she’d left as a girl.
I stepped out of the only country I’d ever lived in and loved.
Together, we became something unexpected: a repatriate and an expat, beginning again.

Reinvention Comes With Bubble Wrap

To be clear, our move wasn’t glamorous. Unless you count watching me battle bubble wrap or hearing Sheila ask: “Are you sure you need that many socks?” But beneath the chaos was something unmistakable: a sense that we were stepping into a life that breathed with us instead of against us.  Reinvention, it turns out, doesn’t automatically come with better packing skills. But beneath the chaos, something undeniable was forming: a sense of rightness.

Learning the Rhythm of Our New Home

Now we’re in Victoria — learning its rhythm, wandering its quiet streets, arguing about which bakery or market deserves our loyalty, discovering that umbrellas are optional but optimism is mandatory. The city feels both timeless and new, old-world and easygoing, like a place that remembers its history but doesn’t rush its tomorrows. Victoria is modern without hurry, historic without heaviness. It feels balanced, as though the city has learned the art of taking its time without wasting it.

Why Start Over at Seventy?

People ask why we would do something so drastic at our age.
The answer is simple:

Because life got too loud.
Because Canada whispered.
Because love, even after fifty years, still needs fresh air.
Because beginnings don’t expire when your hair turns silver, or starts falling out.

It’s Never Too Late for One More Beginning

And if you’re wondering whether it’s too late to start over after seventy — it isn’t.
It never is.

Sometimes all it takes is a whisper, a bowl of oatmeal, and the courage to say yes to one more beginning.