10.15.26 – THURSDAY – 19:38 – CAFE FORET
i’m sitting in a bright cafe near dundas and university. it’s surprisingly crowded for a random thursday night. students have their laptops out, working diligently on things that seem all-consuming but they won’t remember five years from now. the room is alive and buzzing with conversation.
i sit by myself sipping on a cookie butter latte and munching on a sea salt and caramel brownie. i’ve been writing a lot with my pomera (yesterday, i bought a bunch of stickers to decorate it with and now looking at it gives me so much joy), but it’s all been too personal to post. i realize that when i write with my blog niggling in the back of my mind, i sanitize everything i write until it’s watered down and toothless, especially now that i’ve seen actual real-world consequences of my writing.
back in high school and university, i was flippant and thoughtless, daring the world to punish me for my honesty. i wrote with abandon, about people in my life who would read things about themselves later. at times, i would use my blog as a petty, indirect form of communication, jump-starting conversations i was too scared to bring up face to face. i liked to think i was simply expressing myself, using my voice, speaking my truth, but it was messy and not without consequence.
these days. i want to be more careful. i’m starting to understand the value of privacy and i no longer want to be so readily perceived. i realize that people can take my words and run away with them, and when i exaggerate or take creative liberties with my own feelings, it misrepresents me and feeds into an innacurate idea of who i am.
even though i’ve always understood that the picture a person has of you in their head will never be the truth of who you are, i don’t want to give people quite so many opportunities to misunderstand me, or read the wrong way into the things i share.
there is a beauty in vulnerability, putting yourself out there, letting people in, but there is also a danger. and i think part of growing up for me is underestanding and mitigating that danger, moving more cautiously. but of course, this means i can’t actually practice the full force of free and honest expression.
i was out with a couple of friends for dinner last week and one of them said i should start a substack and i think i’m going to do it. keep it anonymous and make it a space where i can be completely 100% honest and write without being selfconscious, without risking myself or others. i still want to share. i want my words to reach someone, for them to resonate, to believe i’m not alone. the great reach into the void. and maybe in this way, i might help someone else see that they’re not alone.
a couple of days ago my family celebrated thanksgiving and, as we do every year, we went around and each of us said what we were most grateful for this year. i was second to last to go, and by the time it got to me, i already knew what i was going to say.
this year, i’m actually thankful for the extnded time i’ve gotten to spend back home in toronto, even if the circumstances that afforded that time are terrible. i’ve been trying to give meaning and purpose to being here, and looking back, i realize i’ve stumbled into so many opportunities to confront and finally reckon with so many parts of my past, and start to make peace with things i thought i’d put to bed. i’ve really been able to wrestle with who i was in this city, who i am now, who i could be.
i read a book while i’ve been home called “breats and eggs” by mieiko kawakami. in the final stretch of the book, the narrator revisits the place she grew up in, pulled along by some inexplicable, unassailable force, drawn there by something beyond her own willpower.
she finds herself at the building she lived in until she was 7 years old, now abandoned, desperately pummeling on the door to her family’s old apartment, believing if she could just see everything again – perhaps her old bookbag is still there, her favourite stuffed animal – something inside her would finally fall into place, some piece of her being would finally make sense.
a little while later, i finally watched backrooms and one of the repeated motifs was the idea that we’re all stuck in cycles and true liberation comes from finding the strength and agency to forge new paths.
mystery, nostalgia, melancholy – i wonder about the things we carry, the things that live inside us that we think we’ve grown out of, that we think we’ve moved on from. i think i hope i can see the broken or confusing parts of my past from a new vantage point. i think i hope i’ve finally gained the tools to spar with these things in a better way. but we are creatures of habit, and i wonder how impossible it can be to avoid familiar traps.
a few weeks ago, i kissed a boy i’ve had a crush on since the summer i graduated high school, and the next week we had dinner and i finally decided to close that chapter in my heart. sweet nothings turned into a form of a denial, and i realized i could liberate myself from the confusing dynamic of perhaps one-sided attraction that’s dominated our 15 years. so i did, and i feel free, and now i can actually be what he needs me to be – a good friend, someone who cares about him without wanting anything more.
the night after i saw him the first time, i went to my 15-year high school reunion. at first, it was exciting and fun to see everyone after so long, but soon the old feelings crept in: a sense of alienation and separation. before i left, walked around the school by myself and remembered the boy i was those many years ago, sitting in the music room at lunchtime playing piano on my own.
i want to sit with that boy now and give him the sureness i hope i now have. i want to make him brave and strong. i want to give him permission to live without fear of rejection or condemnation. i want to take away the nagging feeling of being wrong or somehow misplaced. and i want to gift him the safety and security to grow into himself with boundless joy instead of stifling, claustrophobic worry. and so i sit with him, in my heart of hearts, there at that lonely piano, and i try.
a couple of days after the reunion, i had an incredibly honest conversation with my mom about that tumultuous time in my life. it was the first time we’d ever really talked about it. this past sunday, i got to share some of that with my dad too. and i’m lighter knowing they might understand me a little bit better. something closed breaks open and points to a tender and more expansive future and i live with a greater hope i didn’t realize i craved.
the first couple of weeks here were chaotic and full of old stumbles, but i made new vows in october and now it’s been 20 days since i’ve had a drink. i’ve found a peace i can exercise here too, in this city, the site of all my chaos. i can exist here, in my history, in new ways – and how wonderful is that? to know that you don’t have to be a prisoner of the person you once were, to gain a new sense of an elusive mastery. and suddenly, even the most dark and dreadful parts of this city are bathed in a new light and bold, vivid colours emerge.
in the end, this time has been a kind of gift, and so i’m grateful. i’m trying to put into practice everything i’ve learned over the past few years, to be who i am instead of who i once was and live with the great hope of always, by the grace of God, becoming who i’m meant to be.
and even though i’m not perfect and the process always feels like taking one step forward and two steps back, i’m learning to take things one day at a time, have grace for my great failures and celebrate the little victories.
i wrote a poem once during the pandemic that goes like this:
“come find me
in the space between
who i am
and who i want to be
come build a home
in that uncertain place
a makeshift bed
in the shade of my
becoming”
i now know that i was writing to myself.