Irish Eyes On Surrey

A tale of Emigration and Appreciation

My name is Sarah Flynn, I am a Counsellor and Life Coach in private practice (LimitlessWellness.ca) living in Surrey Central. I have been in Canada for just over 3 years, of which 9 months has been in Surrey. I started my private practice in Surrey this January and  I am from Dublin, Ireland. I had been working as a Financial Advisor in Ireland and in mid 2009, I lost my job to the recession. This was a very difficult time for me and a huge wake up call. I had grown up in middle class Ireland and my societal conditioning had taught me that all I needed was some education and the work would be there. Little did I know until this point in time that my prosperity was reliant on so  much more.

It felt as though the bricks were literally tumbling down around me as young people fled the land to places like Australia and North America. I had heard of the stories of this happening before, but to my generation they were like tales of folklore and a time long ago. The only difference now was that instead of boats, we were leaving on planes. For those who could not leave due to having families and a mortgage noose around their necks, their stories were the talk of office coffee rooms or morbid pub chat. Small talk with neighbours was no longer about the terrible weather, it was “so did you here Mary’s son left for Australia?”

So in September 2009, I made the decision to get out. I had no idea how long I would leave for, where I would stay when I arrived and what I would do for work. None the less I bought a one way ticket to Vancouver and waved fair well with two suitcases dragging behind me. Looking back now, I am not sure how I did it or where I found the courage to go alone. On my arrival, I heard Canadians speak of the recession and how bad it was for them. I had to exercise great restraint as I felt called to inform them that they really had not experienced what I knew as a recession.

Since being here, I have lived in downtown Vancouver, South Granville, North Vancouver and east Vancouver. I love Vancouver very much but in June 2012 my partner Cory and I were fed up living in what I consider, sub standard rental accommodation. We have two small dogs, meaning our options were extremely limited within our budget. This is when I came across rental listings in Surrey. Friends strongly cautioned me to not move to Surrey. “It’s a dangerous place” and “I know people who have been mugged there”, were the common warnings. I had heard East Van described similarly and from my experience, there are no places in the lower mainland where I have ever felt unsafe. It is all relative I guess, because for me and where I come from a dangerous area is far far worse.

The image Vancouverites and the like conjure up about Surrey is similar in a way to how many North Americans have come to envision Ireland. However, my experience of Ireland is not one of frolicking through green pastures with Leprechauns, while car bombs explode on the horizon. Just as much as my experience of Surrey is not one of danger, drug riddled pavements and cars mysteriously vanishing from parking spaces. I am by no means saying that Surrey does not have its problems. I am saying that perhaps the distorted image of a place, allowed to hang around like a dark cloud, could be a far greater reason for why a city struggles to heal, than we give it credit for.

We moved to North Surrey and have not looked back since. In fact I can not sing its praises enough, so much so that I felt called to write about it. It is a rapidly changing city with big plans and I can honestly say that I am excited. Its rapid and continuing evolution is vividly apparent between grandiose apartments and disheveled sex shops. For the first time I can actually say I know the name of a city’s mayor and not only that, I really like her and what she is doing. I have witnessed the rapid expansion of Dublin and its consequential demise but there is something very different about how Surrey is moving. There is delicate precision in the choices being made and a well thought out plan for every step. Perhaps I am lucky to be looking at Surrey with new eyes and to have experienced what happens to a city when its eyes are shut tight. I have the benefit of not having to let go of any old grudges towards this city and the experience of a hard earned lesson to now be able to spot the potential in something new.

My Fiancé is Canadian and finds my new found admiration for this city almost comical. We live beside the King George Sky train and the beautiful Holland Park. Across the street from me is my local convenient store, StarMart, where the owners greet my dogs and I most days. Taste of Punjab serves fantastic Indian food and the pizza deals at Pizza Point leave Vancouver’s prices by the way side. My dogs, not surprisingly are most fond of Serpentine Park. The new Library is a fantastic resource and the SFU building is architecturally beautiful. I can feel the positive energy in this city and may even consider buying here in the not too distant future.

My hope in writing this is that readers might feel a little extra pride for their city. Maybe an outsider’s perspective may help residents to dust off their city’s old coat and hold their heads a little higher. Perhaps I may even succeed in planting a seed in the minds of residents of neighbouring cities, to begin to consider how unrealistic our images of a place could be. For if not, and they are to visit Ireland someday, they will be surely disappointed to not find a Leprechaun anywhere in sight.

A big thank you to the Celtic Connection Newspaper for the honour of being published in their paper this March 2013 and to the Now Newspaper in Surrey who published me as a guest Columnist in Tuesday’s issue, March12th.