I'm writing again...
It’s been over two years since I left the country. With the pandemic, a breakup or two, staying home constantly, I think life had sort of lost its vivacity for me. When I started going back in person to work again, some things just felt different. Toronto had always been this bustling, big city for me that was like a promise. At twenty-two, fresh out of school, it represented everything I’d always wanted— a career in Canadian Lit, full of culture, new opportunities, and art all around me. But after two years of doing that dream job from home, postponing things, it was different. There’s this Hemingway quote, kind of cliché, “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it,” and it’s been eating at me. I hate to feel like I’m spectating my life. I began to feel awkward on the subway. I didn’t want people looking over my shoulder at what I was reading, I was scared to ask for directions when I got lost. For fucks sake, I never even took an uber alone before. I don’t know. But there’s something different about being utterly alone in a city, knowing a total of one person, and letting yourself go when for so long you’ve been holding on to this sheltered version of yourself.
I found myself saying yes to going to a conference for work purely for the reason of getting out. I was claustrophobic, which is an absurd thing to say about a big city. But I was, truly. Each week felt like I would just get ahead, only to fall back behind. I’d say no to a lot of things, because I didn’t want to get sick, or I just didn’t feel comfortable anymore. I don’t know if this was a loss of will, but I’ve been trying to find ways to make myself happy again. And I think that’s sort of where I’m getting with all this right? I mean there are a lot of things I learned while I was gone and am still learning. But I guess I got to start somewhere and that somewhere is that the world is not fucking black and white. It’s in full colour. And it’s swirling all around us. That’s the thing about it we ignore. And then we spend all this time— waiting, waiting, waiting.
We spend time waiting for another paycheque, for better timing, for good weather, for someone else to be ready, for things to be “right.” But honestly there is no fucking way to know if things are right. And if you’re waiting for right, you’re going to miss it. I spent so long doing this my head was spinning in circles. I’d been waiting last year to go away on vacation until my former partner had more time stowed away, till he felt we were serious enough. Then he was just gone, and I though a lot about how I’d have waited my life away if I had stayed in that relationship. How at the end of the day, I did everything I could to make sure that that worked, and it didn’t. The thing is, that is completely okay. There is only so much we can control. And what we can control is how we are, what we do, what we say—we can’t control how other people are going to react to us. Don’t wait, don’t leave things undone, don’t leave things unsaid. I used to think there was no way I’d be doing certain things, that they were only in dreams, you know? But there’s no reason you can’t be the person that you dream about to a degree. It’s okay to be selfish. It’s okay to slow down and to care. You deserve to experience things you want to in life. And if someone else doesn’t, that is entirely their choice. You just have to let be, let go. Life is funny, and it’s fucking weird but the moment you realize that you can’t control everything, that you can only control your own self, it’s freeing.
Another thing I’d finally started to latch onto is that you need to get a sense of indulging in your independence. There’s something about savouring an experience, and just allowing yourself that silence and time to enjoy something. My best friend Corina always chews her meals so fucking slowly. And we endlessly used to nag her about it. I’d be done my meal and Cor would have more than half of it to go. If you ask her why though, I think it’s one of the most applicable things to how you conduct yourself. Cor chews so slowly because eating is an experience she wants to savour. And when you put that into practice with the things you do, it makes it that much better. Walk slowly through the park. Get fucking lost. Sit in front of a statue for an hour. Why are we constantly in a rush?
I think I was finally honest with myself when I began remembering my aloneness as something to be protected, to be proud of and to take care of. The word sounds so cold, so uninviting and bleak—but it shouldn’t. It’s where it’s easiest to unwind and find peace. Being honest with yourself is hard, you don’t always want to hear what you truly think. In aloneness, it’s hard to avoid though. I’ve always had this need to have people around or be consuming some sort of media to distract myself. I had stopped making playlists (music made me feel too much), I always had on some sort of documentary or podcast, strictly no romance novels (didn’t want to know what I was missing), I guess I kind of thought that I would think about all the things I was in denial about if I just stopped and breathed for a bit. I have so much love in my life, and I am so grateful for it, but I was sucking that same life out of me. And I shouldn’t have been. At the end of the day one of the most important forms of love we forget to nurture is our selflove. I needed to let that fear of “nothing” go and let myself learn to love things again; reclaim them and be happy in my own company. What’s the use in making everyone else around you happy if you’re miserable the whole time? Making sure you’re good is just as important.
There’s no one thing to blame for my loss of self. I could sit around saying it was my old boyfriend’s fault, or that the pandemic stole years from me that I can’t get back—and yes, these things were all contributing to that loss but at the end of the day my biggest enemy was my own fears. I guess, all that matters is we try. Saying these things is all fine and great but it’s fucking hard to realize and put into practice. And that’s fucking fine. Things are never going to be perfect. I am never going to be perfect. The world, is never, ever, going to be black and white, because it is in full colour. It’s swirling all around us, and we just have to try a little bit not to miss it.
