Leaving Canada

 

26 Sept 02.51hrs YYZ time

BR35 has been in the air for just over an hour, another 14hrs or so to go till Taipei. This is the moment that in the past few weeks of being and feeling so overwhelmed, I have been looking forward to. Yet I am far too tired, far too numb to even feel, really feel how I am feeling.

What a rush the past 24hrs have been. Watching the latest Downton movie with my friend, something we have long said we would do together, to frantically packing and cleaning everything until the very last minute (really, I had probably 15 minutes to spare and to actually breathe, as friends have been telling me to repeatedly over the past few weeks).

Now I am on my wei. Now I am finally embarking on my journey to an unknown future, to a foreign land where I do not know many people, where the animals and creatures all seem to want to keep you…

What have I just left behind? Again, I am too tired to really realise what it is that I have said goodbye to. Though that is exactly it, as it does not feel like a goodbye, at least not a final goodbye, for I am scheduled to return in around 2 months from now. This flight feels just like all those flights I have taken for work or leisure, with the exception that I have brought 2 large suitcases, as well as my new bike case, together with two carry ons with cash and essential paper that will grant me entry into a new continent and a new country.

These past few weeks have been so excruciatingly painful. Were it not for the kindness and support of dear friends and my ex, I would not have made it. There were so many moments I felt like breaking down, like giving up and crying, for it was just too much.

Sorting, throwing things away, packing, and closing lids to plastic tote bins I have bought to store the many, many mementoes and pieces of paper that mean so much to me now, but perhaps a couple of years down the line are just  yellowing pages or faded words that look lika any other that have endured through time.

It has been especially painful, as all the resistance I had to organising things springs from my fear (very real fear) of again being triggered by memories of past I cannot longer change, a past that is so bitter sweat with the memories of those dear loved ones who have passed on. That, plus the pain of breaking up, of trying to juggle the demands of work and uncertainties of what awaits me in the days, months and years ahead.

All through the past few weeks, I have slept poorly and restlessly, for I am easily stirred by the worry of what is to come, of the many, many things that have been undone or unsaid. True, I have accomplished a lot, yet, like my usual self, I do not recognise what I have managed to do in such a brief time, and mostly on my own, even though there are so many people who are willing to lend a hand. Finally, as things were getting too much, I let people in, and am filled with such pangs of guilt and “being a burden” that I keep apologising for being such an imposition that I am sure I sound so insincere…

My neighbour and ex came by just hours before I was headed to the airport. They kept their cool, they were standing by to help, while I frantically ran around trying to make sense or put some order between packing my bags, throwing all the little objects and items into tote boxes destined for the basement storage locker, and making the place semblance of normality that is ready to be rented out. I spent pretty much the whole of the last day in a van going from one person to another to deliver the leftover furnishing of my first ever apartment. What an ordeal, really what an ordeal it has been, not just the grueling roughness and pain of moving, but also due to the incessant rain that kept pounding everything around us as we tried to criss-cross town.

But I made it. There is no turning back. What has been done, has been done. What has been left undone cannot be done for I have already left Canada.

What am I leaving behind? Dear friends and lovers who have texted to say how much they wish me luck, and how they wish me every bit of happiness and discovery in the new country.

I think it has not yet dawned on me what is really happening, what I have packed up and am leaving behind...