3.5 years

At YYZ once more, bizarrely bleary eyed, considering that it’s nearly 1pm. I really need to improve my sleep hygiene with these time zone issues – stayed up waaaaaay too late talking to Mr. Victoria and then watching the last three episodes of season 1 of Damages.

My loft sale closes today, and even as I’m conscious that there are two young women having a big emotional moment when they unlock that door for the first time, I’m feeling pretty detached from the whole thing. Maybe it’s the effect of the endless bloody tedious steps of this move – I was still tossing and organizing and making decisions about stuff on Tuesday and Wednesday (what the EFF could still be there after all of these moves? Books to donate, a fridge and freezer crammed full of stuff, expensive Tupperware filled with rice & flour, a few things under the bathroom sink, the cd rack bolted to the wall that B decided she wanted, etc.). Or maybe it’s just that the loft really was a transitional zone between my divorce and my future life, and it was time to move on.

This space did bracket my relationship with F, as embedded with possibilities and hopes in the front end, scene of dusty sleepless nights and those fleeting moments of half-asleep recognition that things with F were never even sewn tightly enough together to be frayed, knowing the inevitable in that hypnogogic zone of freefall.

Lots of facing of self, finding of feet in the slap slap on the cork floors, encountering simultaneously the Cate who wanted to live in a pretty unfettered way and realizing how much the chaos and noise of the market agitated me. Facing self as a time-compressed person against Kat’s creative all night explorations.

The best aspect of those 3.5 years was Kat, in fact – loving reminder to slow the hell down and notice things, enjoy my quirks, let in the music (and the Indian Jinx-be-gone potion). Also finding Jess, the hairdresser who really found my hair. The worst – well, the facing of all of the angst, although it was also the scene of facing it down and learning to hold it more loosely, with more humour. Really entering my phd and owning it and all it could mean.

I did a final sweep last night of the place, leaving a few eccentric items behind that I hope won’t annoy the new girls – a couple of mops, some lightbulbs, mango gelato and packaged smoked salmon in the freezer. A box of latex gloves that I acquired from a paramedic friend who had a vision of me as somewhat more inclined to random hookups than I am. (Her vicarious hopes, I guess). I also left some flowers and a friendly note wishing them well – though my gut is that buying an open concept loft as a young couple (especially one with two damn much outside noise) is probably a Mistake. (Cynic, I am).

So that scene is faded, and I have my perch in the sky with the inky north west sunsets, and my cottage by the sea, and a pretty strong sense of how I’m navigating the world solo. Missing F from time to time – especially in TO – but every moment of felt loss is infused with immediate reminders of the painful, always-chafing bits. Realizing my time with him and my time in this space left me with a sense of myself as a serious person with lots to do, but also such a strong need to intimately connect, be playful, seize it all.

Not a bad thing to take away from those three and a half years in that space.