reclaiming your hometown

Author’s Note: I submitted this to a publication and haven’t heard back (lol) so I figure I’d break the rules and post it here.

For the past three years, I have been living out of two suitcases. One, that without fail, is always overweight - with an excess of silky tank tops and mini skirts, cowboy boots and sandals for the endless days of the Roman summer. The other is a carry-on, filled with flared jeans and a few winter tops that I sparingly use for the Roman winter, which always feels like a Canadian spring.

I have been back home in Toronto for about four months. I left those suitcases in Rome, in Italy, as a form of manifestation. I believed that when my visas expired, some cosmic force would wave its magical hand in the air and I would be back in Europe, back to being nomadic in no time at all. But, when the plane hit the tarmac at Pearson Airport, my heart rate slowed. It was as if my nervous system just settled. A foreign feeling.

There’s a beauty to running, isn’t there? It’s part of what makes us human. That freedom, that ability to get up and go to wherever our hearts desire. That innate feeling that calls us to explore. But what was my identity without those train tickets? That relief of a short term Airbnb booking, and not a long term lease - “just in case I get bored”.

Two weeks maximum - I told myself. Only two weeks. I will get another visa, I’ll be on the next flight to Italy or France or wherever else I could escape to and “figure it out” as I went. Leaving it to the universe. Leaving it to destiny. The universe always knows more than we do, anyway.

On the second day of my homecoming, an ex reached out. That ex. That one everyone has. The “I always wondered what-if” ex. The “right person, wrong time” ex.

And it was when I rested my head on his shoulder, a few martinis in - that I realized - maybe this isn’t so bad. Having something to sink into. Having someone to sink into. Familiarity. Comfort. Home.

I tell him that my biggest fear is that a man will get bored of me.

Will I ever be enough for someone? Will one place ever be enough for me?

I told him that a lot of people got it wrong. “What are you running from?” Someone once asked me. But in those three years, I never felt like I was running from anything.

Rather, I always felt like I was running to.

But was I worthy of one spot? Of one place? Would it be enough to hold me, to hold all of me?

This was the question that kept me up at night.

What do I do? I wrote to her on a Friday.

And even though we both live in two separate universes, she answered right away. I should never be surprised at the immediacy of a mother’s presence when her daughter needs her most.

A year lease in the city where I was born and raised.

I resented her plan, its plan, for maybe a day or two. But I kept coming back to that feeling. My head resting on his shoulder. An old bar, 2 martinis in, the hockey game on tv. No masks, no introductions, no pretending. No “next steps”. Just us.

“Reclaiming your hometown”, as my friend so eloquently puts it.

So here I am. Writing to you. Writing to me. Slippers on, a cup of lemon and ginger tea in front of me. One month into a year-long lease. Make-up free, glasses on. Thinking about reclaiming my hometown, and reclaiming rest.

To not be a stranger, to not be a guest. To not be the girl sitting alone at the bar, or another passenger on a moving train. To sit, to be, to feel, and to wonder.

This has to be part of the human experience too, doesn’t it?