erin!balser

For months I’ve been meaning to post some insightful meta-crap about living in Toronto and what it means to be a small-town Nova Scotian living in Toronto. It’s supposed to blacken my soul and harden my heart; a horror I don’t realize it until some family tragedy forces me home and I open my eyes and see that a community of high unemployment, low population and little to do is really the way to the good, the truth and the light.

I always hated Toronto growing up. Hated it for having the things Digby didn’t, hated it for appearing to have economic and political clout, hated it for the fact my parents’ income couldn’t buy them a one bedroom condo downtown there, hated it for being smug and superior, hated it for being smoggy, hated it for being there.

Then I moved here. It wasn’t intentional, it was just the path my life took. It made sense to live here and no sense not to. I still can’t fully embrace living in Toronto (hell, living in Ontario), because somewhere I’m convinced a little part of me will die.

I don’t even like Digby. And I still can’t do it.

However, I’ve realized a few things. Toronto gets the short end of the stick most of the time. I can take the subway regularly (during rush hour!) and not want to kill myself. It’s actually nice to be able to shop at three different Gaps in a single day if I really wanted to. Saying hello to the hooker who works the corner is a nice thing to do. That even though I live in the downtown core–within walking distance of all those icons that make Toronto what it is–it bugs the hell out of me that my walk to school is routed so that I can’t see the CN Tower.

The fucking Soctiabank building is in the way.

So yeah. This wasn’t profound at all. But then, neither is living in Toronto.