Big city dreaming

I always talk about Toronto and how much my life has changed since I moved here last year. It was a huge step I made and it truly changed everything. I had this burning desire to make it here and to do it on my terms in order to ensure that I would be successful at what I was doing. I planned, I talked to people, I got myself informed. I dipped my feet in the water before I fully dove. I knew it wouldn't be an easy thing to do and I was fully accepting of that. I hoped it would be hard to some extent just so I can learn to be responsible and learn to take care of myself.

Some days were hard, some days I cried, and then eventually I made a breakthrough. I made it where I wanted in terms of a job, I made friends and I started living the life I was chasing. They say that what goes up must always come down too. I fell into some messy romantic affairs, but I moved forward. This year, I focused on re-establishing myself in the city I love. All that happened did not change my love for the city.

I took a break in April and went back home to my family and got myself together. I planned for the future and where I wanted to end up. I eventually came back to Toronto in June and picked up where I left off. I built a solid relationship with my roommate and we started a communal journey of exploring what the city can give us.

And yet, as much as the city can give you, you must have a strong enough character to face what the city can take away from you. The same way that the city makes you, it can also break you.

Toronto is not like home. People come and go and these connections that I am chasing feel so superficial in a city like this. At home I have friends that have been in my life for a decade and here I can barely keep one for a year. A lot of the friendships here are for clout and pictures and not for the true meaning of it. You get replaced quicker and there's a certain degree of FOMO that starts building up whenever you think about what the people at home are doing and how they're advancing their life without you while you scramble to make it work.

A lot of the people I meet here tell me that some of their closest friends are people they met just months before. I didn't pay much attention to it before because I just thought that it must be easy to make friends in a city that big and that populated. In reality, it is so hard. Sometimes a city that big and that populated is also cold and absent.

But none of this is the end of the world. Toronto remains Toronto. People either go big or they go home (literally). I was always scared of that. I was scared that I would finally make it here and it would be so hard that I would eventually move back home. I don't think I am intimidated like that yet. I feel like no hit has been that big to make me leave. Just a rough patch in the road but we move strong and we move forward.