By her late twenties, she was already thinking about where she could go next. Australia had already been an adventure. New Zealand was somewhere she loved. Europe had always held a particular pull. Much of her extended family was scattered throughout England and Germany.
 

And then she thought: What about Canada?
 

The answer eventually took her to Edmonton, where she spent the summer of 2016 living with longtime family friends and exploring the possibility of working in the nonprofit sector. She had been working in the film industry in Los Angeles, but she had begun questioning whether it was what she wanted from her life.
 

“I went and studied history and politics because I wanted to do something that matters,” she remembers thinking.
 

During this pursuit, she met the man who would eventually become her husband. Living in Alberta, it was only natural that their second date was the first night of the Edmonton Folk Fest. Their summer became a classic whirlwind romance, but later, she moved to Vancouver. She found work with a nonprofit research organization. When her boyfriend was called to an oil and gas project in Ontario, however, she quit her job, drove across the country, and joined him.

Eventually, her career took her through Manitoba, Hamilton, and Valemount, British Columbia, where she worked on major pipeline projects. Along the way, she and her partner built a life together, eventually marrying and welcoming their son.
 

But beneath all those moves was something Tana hadn't anticipated: how much harder it is to move through the world when you need permission to do it.
 

Her first application for permanent residency in Canada was denied. She had applied under her own qualifications, believing she had done everything right. Instead, the decision came down to someone else's assessment of whether her skills were needed in Canada.

“I could do everything right,” she says, “but still get denied for a multitude of reasons. Even though my first permanent residency application was polished, I got denied.”
 

For someone whose life had always been shaped by movement, the waiting was particularly difficult. Immigration meant that decisions about her future were no longer entirely hers.
 

“You can work so hard for something and feel like you want it and deserve it and are worthy of it,” she says, “and if someone’s having a bad day, they just… take that dream away. It's not up to you ultimately.”
 

That loss of control became one of the biggest lessons immigration taught her. She had to apply again, for permanent residency, and COVID-19 further extended that turnaround. She found herself,  yet again, caught in that waiting game, with her future in the palm of someone else’s hand and required signature. 
 

When she finally was accepted as a permanent resident, she was relieved. Then, after the difficulty of becoming a permanent resident, Tana's journey toward Canadian citizenship was surprisingly different, and came with greater ease.  
 

She says, “I guess with my citizenship, there wasn’t really the unknown, but I also didn’t expect it to be the easiest part.”
 

She wasn't worried about being denied. After everything she had experienced with permanent residency, citizenship felt less like another uncertain battle and more like the final step in a journey that had already taken years.
 

Recently, Tana became a Canadian citizen.
 

For someone who had spent so much of her life moving between countries, the moment carried a significance that went beyond simply adding another passport to her collection. Canadian citizenship meant that the place where she had built her adult life could finally feel more permanent. Her husband is Canadian. Her son is Canadian. Her family, career, and community are here. And now, she is Canadian too.
 

When she talks about becoming a citizen, she describes feeling genuinely welcomed by the people around her. She remembers receiving messages of congratulations from Canadians, some joking that she was officially welcome to the country now. But beneath the humour was something meaningful: after years of visas, applications, waiting, and uncertainty, she finally had a status that felt secure.

“Canadians are very welcoming people, and I’ve felt very welcome to this country at every step.”

Citizenship also gave her the ability to participate more fully in the civic life of the country she had chosen to call home. She can now vote, which is something many Canadian citizens take for granted. However, for Tana, that mattered. She has always been interested in politics and sees citizenship not only as a status, but as a responsibility.

“Voting..It’s putting your actions behind your words,” she says. “It is so important.”
 

It is a striking contrast to the earlier parts of her immigration journey. For years, her ability to live and work in Canada depended on applications being accepted and permits being granted. Now, she has a permanent place in the country she once wondered about from across the border.
 

The journey from temporary resident, to permanent resident, to citizen may have been bureaucratic on paper. For Tana, however, it represents something much more personal: the gradual transformation of a place she chose for adventure into a place she now calls home.
 

She had always thought of borders as something that existed in the background. They became very real when they started determining where she could live, work, travel, and return home.
 

“I don’t think that the restrictions of borders are so apparent until you’re trying to get across them or trying to live and work in them,” she reflects.
 

And yet, Tana's story isn't one of regret.
 

She still describes herself as incredibly fortunate. She wasn't fleeing war or persecution. She had choices. She had places she could return to. She chose to move. That distinction matters to her.
 

“I chose to move to everywhere I wanted to,” she explains. “I wasn’t fleeing anything.”
 

But choosing to move doesn't mean that moving comes without sacrifice. Her family is spread across the world. Her parents live in France, extended family is in Europe, and her son's grandparents and cousins live far away. She grew up with large family gatherings and remembers Christmases surrounded by cousins and family games. Now, raising a young child in Canada, she feels the absence of that village.
 

“I chose. I chose to make all these moves,” she says. “But they do always come with sacrifice.”

That may be the unexpected side of an adventurous life: every new place you gain can mean leaving another place behind.

Still, Tana continues to see movement as one of the great privileges of her life.

She has lived in multiple countries, holds multiple citizenships, built friendships across continents, travelled extensively, changed careers, fallen in love, and created a family in a place she once simply wondered about on a map. Her journey has taught her that life is short, and that the world is much bigger than the borders we draw around it.
 

Her son is Canadian. Her husband is Canadian. She has built a career here, a family here, and a community here. When she finally became a Canadian citizen, she was able to add another passport to a collection that already reflected just how many places had shaped her.
For Tana, home has never been about choosing one country over another. It is about collecting pieces of the places you have lived, the people you have loved, and the experiences that have changed you.
 

Today, Canada is home. Not because it was always the destination, but because Canada was simply the next adventure.