#microblogging

My map is invible (i see cars,trams and police cars)

Steering cars is awful,especially when i needed to do a 5 lap race

Fighting mobsters on foot feels abysmal ajd misrable

It also took me a moment to notice i got nothing to do in the city,only story missions.

With my divorce playlist on loop, the train finally began to leave the station, sitting facing backwards but still going forward. Writing this article and thinking. The ride to Toronto is hardly as scary as Carrie and Samantha’s Amish-filled, pimple-ridden, murder-on-the-orient-express-esque journey to San Francisco. As red and white OCTranspo buses faded from view and the little blue dot of my location left the city’s bounds, I couldn’t help but feel released. Released from the memories that haunted almost every block in Ottawa, memories that whispered from my bedroom walls, memories that shaped the person that I was in that city. It was a clean slate as we pulled into Union Station, a whole new city, a whole new canvas. As I stepped off the train, a warm wind washed over my tired face and just then, the world felt new again. “I don’t like that I’m going to Toronto on my own.” I hated that I had to even say the words out loud to my shrink Dr. I. “I looked forward to the trip with him for so long, he always made these promises that he was going to drive us down there…” I couldn’t even say anything more, even though I knew that he loved to make promises that he never intended on keeping. “Now I’m going there on my own and it’s so… weird, I don’t know, bittersweet?” I sighed.

“What’s bittersweet about it to you?” Dr. I. asked me. 

“Well, I just thought that I would have all this fun with him around and now I’m all on my own. I wanted to be with him- that’s all I ever wanted, didn’t I tell him enough times I don’t care about the money he made or whatever car he wanted to get, I just wanted him. Why did he… I don’t know, I guess rum from me? From the relationship?”  I was sick of running in circles with myself chasing the “answer”, the “key” that would finally free me from this mental prison of rumination. I almost wanted to cry, clearly some part of the old me didn’t feel like dying along with the relationship. Dr. I. and I had dissected that question so many times in so many different formats, I didn’t even want her to answer them, I knew the answer was the same.“I just feel so… empty when I think about all the fun I’m going to have without him, I mean, it just feels so meaningless.”

“Who said you won’t have fun in Toronto on your own?” She asked. “Maybe you do want to share it with him but who said it wouldn’t be fun the whole time with just you?” She said, “Do you perhaps think you’d have “more” fun with him?”

“Well- I know I’ll still have fun.. It’s just I wish he was there… with me.” I said, pathetic, I know. “ “But clearly you didn’t enjoy being in the relationship anyways. So what makes you think he’ll make a trip fun? I think you’re romanticising this potential- this idea in your head about him but you have past experiences that are rooted in reality that tell you otherwise.” She was right, even if I hated to admit it, but the last 40 minutes of conversation and our Montreal trip was more than enough proof. I had nothing to say but keep in my smile that said ‘Shit, you make a good point.’ She continued, “Maybe you can consider the trip as a symbolic moment. Like you’re finally closing that chapter of your life. Maybe when you get back from your trip, you’ll be a completely different person and you’ll enter a completely different chapter.”

The truth was she was already right. Even just 2 months after everything, I hardly recognized myself in old photos. Whether that be in photos with him or photos of me during the relationship where you can clearly tell that I looked exhausted. Exhausted from another argument, another night spent crying, another morning wondering if he’ll talk to me that day. Some days I look back at the girl in those pictures and pity her, sometimes I even cry thinking about how desperate and helpless she felt, most of all, how lonely she felt during the relationship. I realize now, going through my old playlists from high school that I missed the person I was before I met my ex. I despised who I was while I was with him. Even my friends saw the shift, it was basically immediate after we ended things. Even the regular at my job noticed that I looked and acted better. 

I couldn’t deny it, there was a nagging feeling as I walked along the streets of Downtown Yonge. It felt like a Canadian Times Square. Giant signs and lights, hoards of people and the occasional homeless person singing the praises of our lord and saviour Jesus Christ whilst telling me to go fuck myself. But somewhere, between the hoards of people, I wanted to see somebody. More so, I wanted to see somebody look awful. I wanted to see this certain somebody with bloodshot eyes, dark circles underneath them, increasingly greying hair and an even more irritable gait than he had before. I wanted to see how rugged he dressed and how even in the company of his friends, he was still miserable. I also wanted him to see how amazing I looked, how good I was doing without him. I almost hated how I looked for him in every crowd. 

The next day, as I took a streetcar for the first time into Chinatown and stumbled upon Kensington Avenue, I managed to stumble into a cute jewellery shop on the corner. Since I returned the necklace he gave me for our one year anniversary, I have been walking around with a rather naked neckline. It felt weird to keep it, I remember telling him that I hated what it represented. A year of tolerating his inconsistencies, a year of tiptoeing around tough conversations so as to not trigger him and yet, all those efforts I made to maintain any sense of stability in the relationship still came crashing down. I hated that thing. 

The store was a little overwhelming, it was bright and the selection was endless.  I ended up grabbing a necklace with a ship helm pendant. Kind of like saying that I was the driver of my own ship now. I could either stay emotionally stuck in my previous relationship, trying to look through the files of every memory of every argument and every event to look for “the one reason” things turned out the way they did. Or I could steer the ship towards calmer waters. I decided on the latter. For my own sanity.

As I sat with my friend Nicole in my hotel room, several cans of Smirnoff Ice and Twisted Teas later, we got to talking about exes. The day before, I had met up with her for dinner and showed her a picture, to which she cringed harshly and said:

“I am definitely judging you for dating this guy, he’s so ugly!” Looking back, yeah, kinda. Especially in photos where I looked good and he looked like he snuck onto earth.

Tonight, I told her all the borderline disgusting things he did, the disrespectful ones and the emotionally immature ones. She proceeded to be incredibly shocked that I stayed with someone who lied, pushed my boundaries over and over, refused to communicate with me and constantly hurt me with his basic lack of consideration for my feelings. I don’t even blame her for judging me for staying, I judge me too. I had found that it felt easier to talk about all the terrible things he did and also it felt easier to give my past self some grace in staying. I no longer felt guilty in telling people about him, I didn’t feel the urge to protect him or justify him anymore but I still didn’t like the picture it painted of me. Perhaps Dr. I. was also right, time does heal. I was (and still am) young, my 20s were for learning lessons the hard way anyways. Though I wish I was handed a brochure instead. As Nicole slept over in my hotel room after a night of club hopping, trying not to throw up on my sheets or my suitcase, I realized that this was it. I had completed the trip all on my own. I had my luggages packed, I had my documents all in check, I managed to not incur any extra fees from the ever tempting mini-fridge. I could say that I did it. I had opened the page for a new chapter of my life. 

Thinking back on the last 2 months, I reread the pages of our shared story so many times that I hadn’t even realized that the pages had yellowed, the words had blurred and the paper was beginning to rot. I had retold the story so many times yet never came to a different conclusion, the story felt old and tired as I repeated the words over and over again. The chapter needed to be closed forever and for good. As much as I thought it was scary that I would return to my bedroom in Ottawa with no flowers and no boyfriend, some perspective meant that now I realized that another year spent in an emotionally exhausting relationship seems so much scarier.

As I prepared to board the flight back to my hometown, leaving behind the past and stepping into my new life. I couldn’t help but clench my heart in having to bind the pages shut, but as my girlfriends texted me with excitement and love for my return, with the same girlish heart that we shared in high school the last time we saw each other, my parents telling me about their anticipation in welcoming me back home. I felt less scared of the future with all these warm open arms around me.

XOXO, Thoughts of a Young Woman