Perhaps, I’m Just A City Girl.

When I arrived in Canada, I fell in love with it.
The city of Toronto was amazing, practically and ideally futuristic to my island eyes.
I met you only shortly after, and fell in love once again. You even had the friendliest black cat you named Mona.
You were so beautiful, as if the goddess herself sculpted you to divinity.
You offered me a place to stay in the city.
The more we sought out each other, the more it felt as if fate had linked us.
You were the only one who ever made me truly feel, even though I had surpressed my emotions.
You thought me how to open my heart.
You were the only one who I was able to be truly vulnerable with.
And eventually, we made our link an official union.
It had only been a year in our relationship, but you wanted to go back to where you grew up.
Further north of Ontario, you wanted to return to Sudbury.
Not in the city though, no.
You hated the city.
You wanted to be as close to the majesty of the woods as possible, so you chose Levack.
I wasn’t sure what to think. After all I was just a immigrant girl with nothing to her name.
All I know was that I love you, and I’ll go wherever you wanted me to go with you.
And so we did.
With your parents’ help, you bought your little house near the woods.
You were happy. That’s all I could ask for.
You were so happy you even founded Levack’s first pride event.
I just wish I knew what I know now, ya know?
The rural life was difficult.
So difficult that now, we’re no longer together.
Getting a family doctor in Sudbury?
Near goddamn impossible.
It took a year just for me to get a nurse practitioner.
And the supposed doctor in Levack? I’m still convinced they’re an urban legend as I could never get a hold of them.
And while I waited for a new doctor, my doctor in Toronto abandoned me.
Male doctors, am I right?
The social scene in Sudbury?
Next to nonexistent unless you’re in the city. And even then, anyone should temper their expectations.
Community resources are also out of sight unless you know where to look.
Finding someone who specializes in my African style hair?
Out of the question.
Not only are they next to no hair stylists that can do my hair, but when you find ones who do, it’s practically impossible to get them to follow through on their appointment with you.
The amount of times I was able to get my hair done in Sudbury?
Once, out of my three years living there.
It was like falling back in time.
I still remember when I was asked to pay in cash only at the only LGBT bar there.
I did not need to be reminded of ATM fees.
Then there’s transportation.
We had one vehicle, but getting to the city took 40 minutes.
Oh dear.
You would also go back and forth to Toronto to do your own work.
It was indeed emotionally hard every time you went, but someone had to stay behind to look after our little home near the woods.
Even harder when I realized how difficult it would be to travel to and from the city by bus to work.
It was like trying to work out a complex equation just to know how to get to one destination.
Miss the transfer cab? Another few hours wait to the next one.
And sure, you told me I should get a license but it was hard for me to believe that it took two years to get a license in Ontario when in my home country it only took three months.
The province wouldn’t even let me transfer my original license since they confiscated it at the border.
But I guess it wouldn’t matter though. Even though I got their on time for my jobs at Dairy Queen and Burger King, they would stop calling me in.
Why? I’m assuming they expected me to just know everything already somehow, considering they practically didn’t train me, which in turn fed up my co-workers.
It would be a while until I got work again, but luckily, you got a job in the city with help from your dad.
Then I got a job with Canpar Express.
Oh my god. That was such a dream job (in a way).
A night job sorting packages.
You know how much I like logistics, right?
And I didn’t have to interact with strangers every day that would trigger my social anxiety.
It paid pretty well too because I used that money to upgrade our house near the woods.
But there’s a problem.
We only have one car.
What to do, what to do?
Ah ha! I’ll take you to work with me at night and you can sleep in the car until you have to go to work that morning.
Of course, that would get exhausting, so your parents lent me their car for the moment.
You loathed the Dodge Journey, but it had a special place in my heart.
It was all fine and dandy until one realizes I had a G1. So now I’m terrified every night I’m driving because it will be pretty bad if I got pulled over.
In fact it stressed me so much that when I failed the first two G2 driving tests, one due to the lack of sleep, I had a mental breakdown and quit my job on the spot.
The warehouse floor lead being an ass to us (her workers) and having to wake up an hour early to get there for 2am didn’t help an already delicate situation.
It was incredibly draining.
What lessened the blow was that I got a grant for my writing, but I can’t help but feel like I lost significant approval from your parents.
Boy, did I wish I knew I had undiagnosed ADHD on top of everything.
Oh, hold on? I could have?
In Toronto, I had a previous mental breakdown.
Death by subway tracks?
Sounds enticing.
But there was still a flame of hope within me.
I admitted myself to CAMH, but left before I could get a diagnosis.
You needed me, so I left.
For years I struggled against my brain, something you would also blame me for, because it was something I couldn’t explain.
The medicine I needed to properly function couldn’t be obtained without a professional diagnosis.
Alas, we paid $1500 for something we could have gotten for free if we had endured our separation just a bit longer.
It was actually on the cheaper side for diagnoses.
However, I’m medicated now. I’m better, and with a stronger mind. There’s so much things I have to do now that I can see clearly.
Our house? Oh my god, when did it become so unclean? I must become the ideal house wife at once!
I just wish you didn’t have to sacrifice the amount of money you did, but I’m sure you have no regrets.
That’s just who you are.
The same person who proposed to me, with a heart shaped ruby ring.
I became your house wife and caregiver.
You even surprised me with another child: Our second cat, Freyja.
My writing, I’ll also do on the side. Hence why my creative endeavors proceeded slowly.
Sure, our finances weren’t great. But I wasn’t ever worried.
However, I should have been.
Through it all, you bared a weight so strong that even the strongest love I could give wasn’t enough.
Your disability.
Your pain.
It got worse and worse.
It just kept eating away at your state of mind.
And I could tell.
In the beginning, I could always anchor you back to the feeling of love and hope.
But now, the anchor which was once strong, became corroded.
It won’t be long until it breaks, will it?
…
There’s a major surgery I have to go through.
You said you’ll take care of me.
I told you, you can’t. It’s impossible.
I wasn’t being facetious, I just know your limit more than you know yourself. We’ve been together for three years, so I know you incredibly well.
So well that I even started predicting every thing you would say in our final argument.
Regardless, you wanted to prove me wrong.
I couldn’t make you listen.
The surgery came and went.
But now, we’re both on edge.
I’m in pain.
My emotions: Fucked. Stressed.
I’m frustrated at every attempt to bring you back from the dark, ends with me pushing you closer into it.
It was bad and you’re stressed as well.
So stressed…you wanted to end our relationship?
What?
Why?
When?
Your boss has made your life a hell and I’ve become a big burden to you.
Your boss doesn’t like it when I have to use your company car, even though you’re the only one with transportation.
And now I can’t keep up with being your caregiver.
I’m too much to handle.
It doesn’t matter if I can’t work yet or if I can’t do my post-surgery recovery in a homeless shelter, it has become too much for you.
I tried to tell you.
Why didn’t you listen?
I knew my limits, why couldn’t you acknowledge yours?
It was then I realised.
You never had a plan, did you?
For me, I mean.
…
Did you know? Talking with others, I’ve been told that you brought me to Levack just to isolate me from everything.
Crazy, right?
Yeah, it is.
I know you so well that I always knew you never had a bad intention in your soul.
The only thing you’re guilty of, is only thinking about the perfect dreamscape of us in your head, detached from the reality of our circumstances.
And when it comes down to just that, is that really so bad?
Now the immigrant girl is back where she started in Toronto, alone, a hurricane of tangled emotions.
“What was it worth?,” she wonders through the glasses of tequila at the club.
It’s been a bit.
Sure, things are better in the city, but I can’t say it’s better when you’re not here to enjoy it with me.