After six years of living in Toronto I'm leaving. First for two months on a lake at home in Northern Ontario, then a year in London UK, and then who knows. It's so hard to believe as I sit here in this apartment that I love so much that soon this place will no longer be mine. Not just the apartment, but the city. I won't be able to say "I live in Toronto". I won't be riding my bike to work every day past the Gladstone Hotel and the quirky - if somewhat pretentiously hipster - shops, bars and restaurants of West Queen West. I won't be going to work for a community-based non-profit at the Artscape Wychwood Barns, with a wonderful crew of young people who care to work alongside.
I love Toronto! I love working where there is such a warm feeling of community, with kids running around the park, with a garden outside and with art happening all around me. I love running along the boardwalk and Lake Ontario in the early morning, and doing yoga in the tiny sanctuary space near my house. I love going shopping for
beautiful vintage pieces and buying sweet dresses from the independent designers themselves. I love long hot baths in our clawfoot tub. I love this apartment, with its antique stove and chandeliers, stained glass windows, and my tiny but cosy top floor room with its slanted ceilings. I love that our house is old and vine-covered and in the middle of a quiet tree-lined street, hemmed in by the most pulsing of city arteries - King, Queen and Dufferin.I'll miss my roommates, who keep me sane and make me laugh and let me cry and cry and cry (because I do that, you know). I'll miss my dear friends, who I've hand-picked to trust and love because they are all so genuine, so interesting, so un-judging and just such lovely people. I'll miss the dinner parties, the dancing, the live music, the late night street meat, poutine and shawarma. I'll miss the plays.
I'll miss my place in this place. Maybe that more than anything. I feel that I belong here now, which I didn't always think I would. I feel connected to a community of people that care, and who want to make a difference. Who inspire me every day even though the future does not look good for our world right now.
I have been lucky to work with so many organizations who do such good work and who have such passionate people at the helm. Organizations like Not Far From the Tree, the STOP Community Food Bank, Bells on Bloor, Pleaides Theatre, PEN Canada, Clay and Paper Theatre, Schools Without Borders. I'll miss this feeling of connection, and belonging.
I remember just before moving to Toronto that I had this idealistic vision of what it would be like to live he
re. I would live in an old apartment with eclectic charm, I would go home at night and put on some jazz, I would grow herbs on my windowsill, have tulips on the table, and cook delicious meals with my roommates. I would know interesting people, and we would have deep and important conversations.It seems silly looking back on that, it was naive of me I know. But in another way I think that even then I did know what I wanted, what would really make me happy, which I don't think is that common. Happiness is so slippery, so hard to define. I didn't want a lot. I just wanted a place where I belonged, where I felt at home. A place I could make my own, build a life for myself on my terms and around my personal values. And I think I've done that.
The thing is, I don't know if it's one of those things in life you can just check off and say - done. Or if it should be something that once you have it, you should hang on to it?
