Yesterday marks one year since I squeezed all my belongings (and David’s) into a 17-ft U-Haul and drove kit and caboodle from Scranton to Toronto with the help of a friend. I’ve lived in five countries and moved dozens of times as an adult, but leaving that house and that life was by far the hardest move I’ve ever had to make. There were moments when I wished I’d been officially deported so I could get myself on TV and rally public sympathy in a bid to stay in my house for a little while longer. But if the plan didn’t work I would not have been able to scatter David’s ashes in his favourite place, nor would I have been able to visit his final resting place for an indefinite period of time.
I just couldn’t take that chance, so I did what I was ordered to do in the unreasonable time frame of 87 days from David’s passing. I moved to Toronto so I would live as close by as possible without jeopardizing my status in the United States. I chose Toronto over Vancouver for entirely practical reasons, and because of that I’ve tried to regard it very neutrally. When people ask me what I think of the city, I say it’s OK. As with every city I’ve lived in, Toronto has its pros and cons. On some levels it doesn’t feel like any other city I know as a resident — even those with a comparable size, eg. Sydney, Melbourne, Glasgow, etc. — which probably helps.
Toronto, you and I can start from scratch.
I won’t pretend that it’s been an easy 12 months. It’s been hellish, quite frankly. Some of the most rotten experiences in memory took place in Toronto: excruciating employment interviews in the spring, the snafu that was moving from Apartment #1 to Apartment #2 in May, losing Hugh in July, the charity debacle in August, social anxiety and crippling depression throughout 2006. Returning to Vancouver was awfully tempting, but I knew there had to be a bottom to all this and I was here for my own reasons, reasons that would not change if I’d moved west. If anything, they might have intensified. Stick it out a little while longer, I told myself. It just has to get better.
It did. Not overnight, but through a series of events that began in early December things did begin to change and my resolve to continue with what I’d planned resulted in some small breakthroughs. Those, in turn, fuelled more plans and a more positive outlook on life and generally I feel more like myself than I have in a very long time. The past year has aged me tremendously, but I’m still here plugging away and as determined as ever. There are occasional days when I ask myself, What am I doing here??? and I have to remind myself of the reasons, but most of the time the pros edge out the cons in my mind. Taking my history into account, I doubt I will be here for the rest of my life, but if I knew how long that would be, I’d quit my day job and become a fortune teller. Since that’s probably the last thing this city needs, I’ll do as Steve Miller suggests and keep on keepin’ on…
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