going home. a past post with a reflection

its been a year, to say the least.

and i’m sorry to my facebook relatives reading this, for you won’t understand. you’ll question my motives and think ive lost it, but I digress.

I am moving back to calgary. I am going back to all of the things that I said I was so excited to get away from.

and that is truly difficult for me to comprehend because its so new its barely decided, but I feel a wash of relief coming over me as I type this message onto the screen. about two months after I moved here, I had this sudden overwhelming feeling of something not being right. the ocean air was supposed to unlock my lungs and the beach was supposed to leave me absolutely unbothered but instead I felt claustrophobic as all hell and trapped on an island, that I was convinced was going to crumble at any point. (I know that a big tsunami labelled ‘the big one’ to victorians is relatively unlikely but I have been absolutely terrified of it from the second I put my feet on the ground)

it just felt wrong, wrong, wrong, all of it.

and the health care sucks. i am used to multiple options in the face of crisis, a family doctor who can actually prescribe you the medicine you need, for a lesser price, and send you on your way. the island being so small, theres one place they send you if you end up at the hospital for a mental health crisis, and its a poorly managed psych ward that gives me serious ‘one flew over the cuckoo’s nest’ vibes. a family doctor is impossible to find, and walk ins can’t prescribe you ‘controlled substances’ ie; antipsychotics. a very necessary medication. I have one doctor, but they’re only taking care of me until I turn 25, which is happening this august. after that, im screwed. so thats fun.

im trying not to be bitter but I think that last paragraph got the best of me. I do love everything that victoria has to offer, the beaches are beautiful, the downtown is cute, the tattoo culture is as immaculate as it is unpredictable and the sushi is amazing. but I wanna put on a cowboy hat and go back home.

I feel the most heartbreaking thing is ive been a muted version of myself, afraid to leave home, afraid to have friends, afraid to do anything other than work, work, work, study, work. yesterday me and my partner were at a restaurant and they said ‘I bet we could just leave and no one would notice’ (talking about the restaurant) and I said ‘you know what? you’re probably right. a few people would be sad but all in all it would be pack our bags and leave the very small hole we made in the fabric of this town’ and although the comment was misguided, it was cathartic and condemning my fate quickly.

I want to cuddle up in a corner of the palomino and watch 36? on stage. I want to roam the streets of 17th ave and wonder if my life is really a movie. I wanna eat kim ahn and double zero and via cibo. I want to stumble home drunk from twisted bitching about something. I wanna carry my groceries back to my downtown apartment. I want to open my window and look at the calgary tower and play my music from that window and I want to go sit by the river by myself and reflect. I want to write on my floors again. I want to go to the ship and anchor. I want to be with julie and myhia and claire and heather and keane. oh, keane! I want to go back so badly.

Ive had some pivotal moments in my life. tossing my school papers to the wind when I quit college, kidding the ground once I moved back to canada after being in texas, seeing my long-since-viewed apartment torn to shreds upon returning from princeton… hell, even coming here and seeing the view of my new apartment and thinking it was so blissful; these are all moments in which I felt like I had hit a checkpoint. and now im close to the next checkpoint, thats why im yearning for it. and maybe this blog post is me throwing my papers to the wind. maybe finally entering the city limits will be a checkpoint… either way, I know that the checkpoint is calgary. the checkpoint is home.

~

its been three months since I’ve been back, and let me tell you… i’ve done all those things. and its been glorious. I didn’t realize exactly how unhappy I was in victoria until I heard the sound of my heels clicking as I walked at my own damn pace in the downtown core. I have my life back, I have my friends back. I have my old problems back, but thats okay. my dad told me when I decided to move that ‘you’re going to have problems anywhere you go so you might as well stay where you’re at’ but i’ll take calgary problems over victoria problems anyday. They’re much more tangible. Much more meaningful. I didnt think id ever be an individual again, but here I am. Still with my partner, but our lives are a little less glued together which has made us stronger than ever. I am so thankful. from a BPD standpoint, I have been going through it. experiencing dissociation so large it deserves its own post, I utilized the hospital last weekend and they didnt send me away. they gave me options. I left on my own accord. thats some shit that would never go down in victoria. and as a result, I feel free. I am doing okay.

hello. I am back (in more ways than one). thank you for waiting.

a