Montreal in November

I now live in Montreal. Not forever, but for now. It's true, I missed this city. But it takes a lot of conscious effort to remember why.

I tend to take a present moment, and wear as if it would be forever. As such I often freak myself out with the idea of committing to an identity and leave, resulting in my never staying anywhere for longer than 4 months. I suppose within the last 5 years I have stayed in Halifax twice for the term of 8 months, but around the 3rd month I had already planned my escape or dreaded my fixed term, and were it not for a man coming into my life at those times I might have escaped then after all.

I am here for two reasons: for my partner, and for school. But no part of me belongs here. Indeed, everything that this city is, is everything that died in me when I was a teenager. Being here is not only uncomfortable and unfitting, it is a constant throwback to a part of me that already ended with the realization that it was not me. 

There is an energy here, a spirit or a quality of light, that seems to drain colour and life from everything. Even the trees seem unhappy to have landed here, and like me, would rather be somewhere along the tracks that lead to Halifax or Vancouver. 

The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined...

What is it, that we admire? That is to say, why do we wish to be someone else? I was told that one day I would have to accept that I was not "her." "Her" being, that whom I admire...

Why if we admire, isn't it because we see something in them that is also in us, but that we have not been able to make real? Perhaps we're afraid? Then why shouldn't be try to be them?

I have tried to move to the country so many times, and it has never worked. However, the only reason was because of people. I need a certain amount of connection to the people in my life who support me. Something about the city makes me feel connected, safe. I thought this summer I had finally reconciled myself to the city. The prospect of hiding in the woods with my best friend brought so much resistance from within me that I bailed. I kept saying, that I just wasn't ready before, and that now I was ready. And then I would say, it's not that I wasn't ready, it's that it isn't me. And then 6 months later I am back to, I just wasn't ready.

Perhaps it will be different now that I have a partner. Perhaps it will be different if we have a car and I buy my own land. Perhaps it will be different when we have a dog. But something in that scares me too, because I don't know what binds and what makes me free.