momentum.

I seem more myself this week than perhaps I’ve been in the last little while. There is a familiarity in returning to spaces I once inhabited; an old routine even within new and novel beginnings. The body remembers the spaces it once belonged to, and naturally perhaps because of that, I find myself missing the spaces I once resided in. The spaces perhaps I have since outgrown, and the places I can no longer call home. Places that exist on the other side of the world.

As a third-culture kid, I have always been terrified of the idea of commitment. The pressure of being chained to a singular space and being forces an unexpected wrestle and discomfort within my oscillating anxiety. Long distance relationships, impermanence and uncertainty have been my staples growing up; a normal that I’ve framed my being around and all I have ever come to know. With the isolation of a rolling lockdown, I can not help but return to the same familiar feelings I once left behind. As new as the past few months have been, there has been a strange familiarity throughout the process that I cannot help but shake from my bones. As if to say, my heart has lived its life within a space like this before, and it finds itself reclaiming the lessons it had long forgotten.

The last eight years have no doubt taught me the meaning of adventure, and this city has become a place where I’ve created a living and permanent being — a space where I have learnt to grow family in the most unexpected of places. A space where I have found belonging, and a space where I have learnt to create momentum. It has become a place that continues to remind me of the various spaces I have been, and will continue to shape and nurture the spaces I will continue to go and grow.

I never imagined finding a home for myself here of all places and I will forever grateful towards this city. I thank you, Toronto, for teaching me how to build a belonging I’ve never owned, but always wanted to create. For providing a sanctuary that is uniquely mine to claim, after not belonging to one, but many borrowed places at a time.