The past several weeks have been a giant blur. Can I use that as an excuse for why I haven’t been blogging, like, at all? It’s because it’s all felt like only a couple of days. It’s also because of my crazy brain and my apartment chaos and because I’ve been having a whole boatload of teary goodbyes.
But now, I can breathe a little bit. When I decided to come home for a couple weeks before I leave for my big trip, it was mainly because my best friend needed to be in the city this weekend, and I had no real other obligations, so I decided why not? Now that I’m here, though, I am so grateful that I have this little pocket of time at home, to calm down a little and prep for the next big thing.
So how have I been filling my time? Photo essay time!
Okay, so as soon as school ended, I began packing up my apartment and selling or throwing out as much as possible. At the worst, it looked something like this:
Dear me. That was bad. But day in and day out (anytime I wasn’t working, or doing the requisite amount of socializing with my friends in the beautiful city) I purged and sorted and packed and it was great! By the time my family came up for my convocation ceremony, I had a pile of stuff for them to take and not *too* much left to deal with. Check out a highly accurate photo of how I was feeling about graduation/moving out of my apartment:
Note the happy/sad, bemused/terrified, bittersweet facial expression I have going on up in there. Complexity, bam.
I enjoyed my ceremony. It wasn’t overly long, I didn’t trip on anything, and as usual at things like this I teared up a little during some of the speeches. My whole life is opening up in front of me, and such! Afterwards, I took some photos with my beautiful family and rounded up some buddypals to participate. It was fun.
The fam drove home, and left me to my own devices for a couple weeks more. I spent it selling furniture, packing, attending Beer Fest, hanging out on my friend’s balcony watching a thunderstorm, relaxing in parks, and generally just saying goodbye to my beautiful neighbourhood.
I had my last shift at my job of two years. I hugged my coworkers goodbye and cried. I had my last happy hour at my favourite bar. I packed all my stuff. I sold my bed. I cleaned my apartment very thoroughly. In the end, there I was:
It was kind of a strange time. I spent my last night in Montreal (for now) sleeplessly, on my best friends’ couch, doing not so much sleeping and a lot of staring (blindly, sans glasses) out at the sparkly city (they have an incredible view). In the morning, we picked up the rental car, packed it up, and I handed in my keys to my apartment of 2 years and drove out of the city.
And with that, I am home. In two weeks, I have my flight out to Croatia. In case you’re wondering, I am still super nervous for my trip. But one of the things I’ve been doing since I’ve been home is sorting through all my old junk I’ve had stored in my childhood room. And today I found a note I wrote myself about my decision to go to McGill: at the time, it was a big, scary decision for me. In it I wrote that I needed to “have courage, my love” and that “I am doing this because I want to scare myself”. And that’s exactly why I’m taking this trip too. If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough, right?
I’m gearing up for my Great Safe Adventure. But I’m also trying to relax and spend time with my family and enjoy my summer days here in my hometown. Hope you’re all having lovely summers so far! xo.
