I've always felt like a bit of a nomad.
Born in Halifax, raised in Ottawa and growing up with strong emotional ties to Montreal, I was never quite sure where I belonged.
When I was a child, my parents used to take my brother and I to Montreal about once a month to visit family. As a very depressed child who always craved something bigger and better than what I had, these visits to Montreal were my little getaway.
I would grab my pillow, my sony walkman (complete with my Dance Mix '95 cassette) and sit patiently in the back of my parents' Chrysler Intrepid, a car that would later be mine, for what felt like hours before we finally hit the highway eastbound to Montreal. If we go even further back, I remember doing this with a teddy bear and the Hyundai Stellar.
Montreal has always been a home to me. It felt warm, welcoming and full of a heritage I never fully understood and still don't, but will always claim ownership of.
When my father passed away and the Chrysler Intrepid finally became my own, trips to Montreal with friends became one of my favourite activities. Sometimes we'd plan them: we'd drink and smoke at Foufounes Electrique then stay in the cheapest motel we could find. Sometimes it would be as impulsive as "I want a real poutine.". and we'd find ourselves eating La Belle Province poutine at Club Supersexe, trying to stay awake. Sometimes we'd come down just for a show. T(i)NC, MSI, NoFX, etc - all fantastic reasons to escape Ottawa.
Even after giving up my car in favour of urban living, trips to Montreal remained part of my lifestyle.
By 2009, it was about damn time I took a chance and moved my entire life there.
I've been here for 3 months, and I must say that I have been very unhappy. I had taken for granted the leisure of being established in a community, of having favourite nightspots, of having my friends within arm's reach. I thought I wanted a new start, but what I needed was not a new start. It was a break. I've had a break and I want it all back. I love this city dearly, but I do not want to start all over and make new friends, develop a new network, start from scratch. None of it.
Ottawa exhausted me. It wore me out. Those who saw me on stage at Zombie Strippers, right before I moved, couldn't help but notice how burned out I looked. I could not perform. I needed a break.
Well, I've had it.
Montreal, I will miss your clear cream soda; your appropriately timed last call; your abundance of GOOD food; your cheap beer and your alluring exotica that is the French language.
But it's about time I head back to Ottawa - at least until I burn myself out again.
2 comments:
:)
So I wanted to say that I understand and recognize a lot of the feelings that you're expressing here...
When I moved to Ottawa 2 years ago I constantly felt I had been a big fish in a little pond, then moved to a big pond only to become little fish. It's still that way pretty much, I'm tons more popular loved and well known in South Carolina than I am here. But, there is something about going through the pain and surviving it to come out on the other side.
I was unbelievably lonely here. I still am, in comparision. There isn't always someone I can call, there is not a hug to be found 1/2 the times as if I were "home" But I put that in quotes now because what home is, well I'm not sure anymore whether it's Ottawa or South Carolina or if it even exists.
However, as depressing as this may sound, I have grown up more than I ever would've in the past 2 years without my loving best friends and family to lean on or to be inspired by. I've learned more than I would've ever learned about myself mostly. And the terrible dark hole I was in, that loneliness that seemed neverending, well I survived that too. At the end of it I came out of it with the certainty that I can move anywhere, and that I can do anything alone.
I hate to try to sound like I'm convincing you to not move to Ottawa, and I know you've thought about it and dreaded it more than I know probably, but just make sure you've really thought it through.
Post a Comment