volume fifty-four

seven year itch

On my made bed, laying on top of the blankets, the tidiness of the floral duvet crumpled under my movement as I hold the phone in one hand and speak with the other, I see it.

“Oh my goodness that is the saucepan!”

I am laying at an angle that allows me to see the stars out of my 10th-floor apartment window. There is no balcony but my lack of curtains allows the view of neighbourhoods, parks, trees, the parking lot of the stores below and as it turns out, constellations.

“I cannot believe it, that is the saucepan, just it is upside down.”

I have lived in Canada a few months at this point and I am on the phone with someone I miss — the usual for most of my evenings — given the time difference this time works the best. Given the small number of deep friendships made on this side of the world at this point, any time works the best.

A new novelty. Something I have known my whole life, there, flipped on its head. One of many novelties of living on the other side of the world. That, amongst fall leaves soon-to-be first snowballs, the Atlantic Ocean, poutine, Alexander Keith’s, strangers’ fondness of my accent, distance from dysfunctional families and different ways to say the same things.

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This week, lovely friends, marks seven years since I left Australia and headed for Canada in search of — what? I am not sure it was one thing. I know I never planned for it to be seven years. I know I got a working holiday visa that lasted two years and I told my family it would be one year to soften the blow, planning to tell them closer to the twelve-month mark that I had decided to stay another year as if I had just decided it.

I know I left a career I was headed up the ranks in. I know I left an apartment that was my home for many years and to others too, both passing through and close by knowing they could pop in any time. I know I left the third of three Andrews I let break my heart — well, what I believed was heartbreak back then — but now know better as bruised ego. I know I left behind birthdays spent with family, leading to a broken curse of ruined birthdays finally becoming enjoyable. I know I traded river swims after work for what I hoped would be building a snowman after my shift. I know I left a place where I had dipped my toes in using the term bisexual, to go to a place where I was a stranger and people could learn this about me as they learned about me, rather than present new information to those who thought they knew me. I know I was assuming I was releasing myself from the grip of being, what I felt at the time, the family’s glue, breaking the chains, but would soon learn that would take a lot more than distance to create the necessary boundaries, and a lot more work to see it was not in fact glue but rather people pleasing co-dependency (fun!) and unresolved trauma (double fun!). I knew I was leaving my past, going somewhere I could reinvent myself, and start fresh as if any past embarrassing stories or shames would not follow me. I knew I would meet cool new people and maybe even feel a little cool myself. I knew this was the start of something, but I never could have imagined it would not be a new life but rather, a continuation of my wonderful life instead.

my first week in canada - bagel joy

Seven years on and some of this is still a work in progress.

Seven years on and this is my life. City to city, I have slowly made my home here. I have friendships that make up the majority of the best ones, here, and I have ties to places I never could have felt this way about in Australia when I was living there — ties that can only form when you go through significant growth or life development in a place.

I actually got my heart broken for the first time here, I still pass the building sometimes where it happened. It’s actually the same building I was in when I found out I got my permanent residency. I discovered my demisexuality here. I got sober here. I had my very first actual proper date here, period, and I started seeing women for the first time here. I pursued my creative passions here, rather than remaining on autopilot. I celebrated a lot of firsts — like first snowfalls, first Halloweens, first skunks and deer and whales, first time I told someone I loved them, first Pride and first white Christmases. I have lost more people I love while living here when they have passed than in my entire life before coming here. I have watched first dates turn into marriages. I have known every single up and down of seasonal depression, and regular depression too. I have shared homes, tears, laughs, and hugs. There was a fourth Andrew here. Four times is apparently the charm? He was a delight and my demisexual brain had no idea. I was cracked open and softened here. I have travelled more of the world since living here only to return again — coming home.

When my calendar told me it was seven years since I landed in Canada, I was filled with joy, before asking myself, “How has it not been twenty years?”.

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While my heart calls for me loud and clear to come back to my first home, Australia, it asks me to stay here too. I feel torn in wanting to spend time with family and see more of my motherland, while not wanting to leave my life, my home, my connections — really my world — here. How lucky am I to feel so strongly connected to two places? How grateful I am to be back in a city surrounded by these feelings, as two long years of isolation in another city had me feeling a very different way.

I feel so fortunate to be setting out on my next chapter, one of a life split between two homes. A life I can have the best of both worlds and chase forever summers. A life of sitting on the balcony with my Nan and Pop in summer sun watching storm clouds roll in, met with summers biking the sea wall in Vancouver and make-out sessions. A life of crossing Perth off my bucket list by celebrating my birthday there (and then some time) and writing to my hearts’ content, met with group dinners and karaoke or comedy nights with some of my most favourite humans back on this side. A life of cuddles with my nieces and nephews and watching them learn new things, met with the independence of my own life in Canada and watching me grow and learn new things, too.

seven years

I look forward to celebrating my eighth year securing dual citizenship, more passport stamps, maybe a book finally finished (and at the very least very much more written than it is now), my home over here in Canada where I can feel myself in with people I adore and will return to after each visit to my home country, a family home I have known my whole life with my grandparents, a continued blossoming writing career, more memories made, more reasons this place holds me close.

Happy anniversary to us — to me and a life of my own.

I know a lot of my readers have moved around — where is home to you? Is it nowhere, yet travels with you? Like me, is it more than one place that feels like home? Does it change with the seasons? Are you still searching for it?

I love you,

LD

xoxo

Three things I struggled with this week:

💜 Just demisexual things: behaving like I have feelings for someone when logically I do not.

🍽️ Weighing up the pros and cons of working as a server — how much fun I have and how lovely the staff are to be around, how it has started triggering my sobriety, how the income is necessary, how another place wouldn’t be so flexible with my schedule, how exhausted I am of dealing with drunk people (I know, I know).

📵 I am just over being reachable at almost anytime. I need to be for many (family) reasons but outside of that once I know I have my daily grandparent updates, I am switching my phone off, sometimes in the afternoon, just “that’s enough for today”.

Three blessings from this week:

🏠 Nanny and Poppy are home! Although not out of the woods, this is such a relief and makes me so optimistic that they are where they are happiest. Thank you for all of your well wishes.

🦭 Exploring the city like a tourist with a friend visiting from out of town.

💘 There is someone I once hated being in the same room as. It would make my blood boil or my heart ache or my temper rise or my mouth say nasty things in order to try and be spiteful or I would be so aware of my every move that I wasn’t living but rather putting on a show. I can be in the room with this person now and feel nothing but peace, contentment even a little gratitude and love. I can feel around them how I would anyone else I know. It’s beautiful to heal, but I had to put in the work. Thank you past LD for putting in the work.

Three goals for the coming week:

🌊 I am going on a week-long house sit this coming week, and I plan to use the change of scenery to live a less structured week — get done what I have to and relax for the rest — taking it day by day and mood by mood before deciding how to spend the time.

👋 I haven’t revisited IG since I posted that I would be leaving and I will be back soon to delete my account — something I did as there are some people I only connect with there and wanted to give the option to connect in other ways if they like. I know I need to jump on, read any messages and send my contact details to one or two people, but I just don’t want to. I cannot wait to be done with the app, and that is why I don’t want to log on. I guess in many ways I am already very much done. So the goal is to bite the bullet and do it, maybe this week.

🌈 This week is PRIDE in Vancouver! I am so looking forward to a balanced, present-day-Lauren celebration. In past years it was lots of booze and lots of sun (a combo that often resulted in lots of headaches and lots of tears). This year I have a comedy show to attend, an amazing event to volunteer with, a parade to watch with some chill friends and some of their family members, a lunchtime BBQ to go to and a recovery meeting to end it all with. I am so excited to celebrate this week in a fashion that serves me where I am at now and my goal is to enjoy it, and be grateful I have planned out the weekend this way in order to remove any sobriety ickies as much as possible and focus on cheering and community. A pride back in a city that feels like home, with two plus years under my belt of truly diving in and loving every inch of my sexuality is going to be bliss.

What I am enjoying this week: 

Sundays are for readers to write (yay Substack threads)! How are you enjoying them? Let me know what you think, I love getting to know you. Contribute to the conversation here, here and here so far.

My week in a photo dump:

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