Un-Broken
When I came to Ryerson it was the end of eighteen years in the same home. All I knew was Coquitlam. I had spent endless nights roaming the streets of my city, hanging out and growing up with my close group of friends, hating and loving the small extended network of everything familiar. Then I moved three provinces away.
In hindsight, coming to Toronto was similar to finding a new guy –the beginning is always the sweetest. It was fresh and more then exciting to be somewhere so unlike home. I was beyond overwhelmed when I first stepped foot onto Yonge Street. It was humid, and overcast and just past four in the afternoon on the Saturday before the last week of August. And I will never forget walking through Dundas Square with my Mom and fretting slightly at the immensity of the city around me.
It was like I had just laid eyes on the ideal man. Each time I stepped into the sunshine that fall I got a fluttery feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had so much to learn about my new home, so much to get acquainted with. With every new person I met and every new place I discovered I was falling more and more in love with my east coast world.
And then…came winter. Winter in Toronto was nothing like winter on Harbour Drive. The cold blasts of air and white washed streets were not a magical snowy wonderland like I had hoped. The honeymoon stage was over. The city and I had become far too comfortable with each other and I started to notice things I had dizzyingly overlooked in the beginning. I was getting cold feet, figuratively and literally.
This past winter was the worst. Even though it was only my second in the town, it was a record maker even by Ontario standards. I was heart broken. What happened to the Toronto I had fallen for? Where did the always exciting town that had captivated my attention and delayed my yearnings for the west go? With the constant drifting of snow came my ever-growing uncertainty for the future of my relationship with the TO. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this place.
And then came last weekend. The dearly missed sun showed her face again and the temperature was not the only thing warming. My broken heart began to mend as I realized just why I liked Toronto when we first met those short years ago. The chirping of birds walking through the quad at school, the patios coming out of hibernation and the discovery of new faces and places while strolling at midnight –it all came back.
But of course, as always, it’s bittersweet. Just when you think things can go back to how they once were, they don’t. They never do. I return to Vancouver in a mere 9 days. And while my time left is short and sweet, it will be enough. Enough to make me thankful for making the trek two short years ago and enough to make me anticipate my return next fall.
Thank you Toronto…we’re not finished yet.
When I came to Ryerson it was the end of eighteen years in the same home. All I knew was Coquitlam. I had spent endless nights roaming the streets of my city, hanging out and growing up with my close group of friends, hating and loving the small extended network of everything familiar. Then I moved three provinces away.
In hindsight, coming to Toronto was similar to finding a new guy –the beginning is always the sweetest. It was fresh and more then exciting to be somewhere so unlike home. I was beyond overwhelmed when I first stepped foot onto Yonge Street. It was humid, and overcast and just past four in the afternoon on the Saturday before the last week of August. And I will never forget walking through Dundas Square with my Mom and fretting slightly at the immensity of the city around me.
It was like I had just laid eyes on the ideal man. Each time I stepped into the sunshine that fall I got a fluttery feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had so much to learn about my new home, so much to get acquainted with. With every new person I met and every new place I discovered I was falling more and more in love with my east coast world.
And then…came winter. Winter in Toronto was nothing like winter on Harbour Drive. The cold blasts of air and white washed streets were not a magical snowy wonderland like I had hoped. The honeymoon stage was over. The city and I had become far too comfortable with each other and I started to notice things I had dizzyingly overlooked in the beginning. I was getting cold feet, figuratively and literally.
This past winter was the worst. Even though it was only my second in the town, it was a record maker even by Ontario standards. I was heart broken. What happened to the Toronto I had fallen for? Where did the always exciting town that had captivated my attention and delayed my yearnings for the west go? With the constant drifting of snow came my ever-growing uncertainty for the future of my relationship with the TO. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this place.
And then came last weekend. The dearly missed sun showed her face again and the temperature was not the only thing warming. My broken heart began to mend as I realized just why I liked Toronto when we first met those short years ago. The chirping of birds walking through the quad at school, the patios coming out of hibernation and the discovery of new faces and places while strolling at midnight –it all came back.
But of course, as always, it’s bittersweet. Just when you think things can go back to how they once were, they don’t. They never do. I return to Vancouver in a mere 9 days. And while my time left is short and sweet, it will be enough. Enough to make me thankful for making the trek two short years ago and enough to make me anticipate my return next fall.
Thank you Toronto…we’re not finished yet.
2 comments:
Awesome stuff juls.
Very sweet.
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