I <3 T.O.

I don’t know to explain it, but whenever I’m in Toronto I feel like I’m home. I don’t even have a place in Toronto anymore, but I can walk around downtown for hours and be completely content. There are some bad memories, but I don’t have to think about them, and there’s something about the hustle-bustle that feeds my soul.

I love my family, but I wasn’t ready to come back home. I don’t know if it was a mistake, but it doesn’t feel like home to me now. Although I ended a romantic relationship, I didn’t end my relationship with the city. My heart is in Toronto and has been for the last 10 years.

Even being in the TalentEgg office again, almost in my old spot, with all the other young, fun people that make the company so amazing, was invigorating and energized me more than I’ve felt in a long time. It was a little surreal and my mind was elsewhere at times, feeling a little sorry for myself that I’m not part of the team every single day.

So, although my first pay cheque is practically already spent and I haven’t even cashed it yet (dresser from Ikea, spay Sahara, pay line of credit and credit cards, hopefully have a bit of fun and buy some clothes I feel good in…), I know my goal is to move to Toronto as soon as it makes financial sense.

I still need to make a budget, decide how much of my student debt I’d like to pay off and then stick to it for a while, but that’s not too hard when I barely leave my house for about a week at a time, the fridge and cupboards are stocked with food and I don’t pay any room and board.

Fingers crossed. Well, actually, it’s not going to involve any luck, just hard work and discipline.

All settled in and ready to get down to business

So, I’ve been working on this new blog here and there as I’ve had time over the past few weeks and it’s finally to the point where I can actually accept visitors to my new home. Thank you for joining me again. I promise I will start to write regularly again now that I’ve made my new corner of the Internet all homey.

I suppose I’ve done the same in real life, too. It was a month yesterday I moved out of the apartment in Toronto I shared with my (now ex-) boyfriend and back into my dad’s house in Cambridge. Here, I’ve painted, decorated and unpacked most of my things to make it feel more like home again. Unfortunately, I can’t wait to move back to Toronto.

I’m grateful I have the opportunity to take a breather, to catch up on my finances now that I’m done university, to be with family, etc. But after being independent for so long, moving back to my dad’s house in a town where the only way I can get around is awfully planned, infrequent bus routes feels like a prison some days.

I miss being steps from the subway. I miss having everything I need within walking distance. I miss having common space that was more or less just my own.

Things have changed here, too. My little brother has his own life. My dad’s girlfriend moved in two weeks after I did. Many of my high school friends have moved away or we’ve just lost touch over the past five years.

Time just seems to pass more slowly here and I’m going to have to get used to it. I really hope the money I’m saving on rent, groceries and bills is worth it.

Realities collide

Before we started our internships, we were given an overview of what to expect. Number one on the list of Top 5 Things to Know Before You Start Your Internship is

You will cry on at least one occasion.

I haven’t cried in the newsroom yet, but I had tears in my eyes in the cab on the way back to from covering this story.

I’ve always known I’m not cut out for that type of reporting, but a number of people treated me like I was a monster today for trying to find out what happened. I get it. Reporters are intrusive, but it’s our job. We can’t just not do it.

I called the soon-to-be ex-boyfriend a few times to vent in my downtime and inadvertently made myself even more upset by thinking about relationship things at the same time.

When I got back to the newsroom, there was a message waiting from the financial consultant who worked with my mom before she died. He said her remembered her well and I could hear something in his voice, maybe caution or sympathy, I’m not sure. But I heard it.

To get my mind off all of these things so I could calm down a little, I logged into my TalentEgg email and started answering emails.

For some reason, my responsibilities at TalentEgg had the power to take me away from that painful moment where everything that hurts my heart and mind — work, love, life — had intersected at once. I knew I made the right choice.

I just hope it wasn’t the Tylenol I washed down with a bottle of Pepsi talking.

Feeling naked and apprehensive

Most of the time when we transition between one part of life and into another, it’s not so obvious until it’s already passed. We don’t realize everything is different until the change has already occurred and we certainly don’t pause to think about it or be nervous about it.

My six weeks as news editor and production manager of The Ryersonian finished Wednesday. We went out to the pub as a group after deadline on Tuesday night and our professor paid for the food and drinks.

It’s incredible what you don’t know about people, especially authority figures, until you share a pitcher of beer with them.

And after we delivered the last newspapers around campus on Wednesday morning as a group, the five of us went for breakfast at a greasy spoon nearby.

I’ve hated working in groups my entire academic career. At least one person (usually me) is taken advantage of and gets stuck with most, if not all, of the work once the others realize he or she will work hard enough to get a good mark whether they help or not. I’ve had dozens of terrible group experiences.

But this group was incredible and we knew it would be before we even started working together.

Sure, it was stressful sometimes and we were short with each other once in a while as the 5 p.m. deadline crept up every Tuesday, but we tried not to take ourselves too seriously while at the same time giving one another the mutual respect we all deserved.

After spending at least five or six days a week with these people, I now feel naked without them. Three of the others are staying in Toronto for their internships, like me, but my closest friend left for Vancouver on Saturday morning.

We became even closer while on the masthead and it feels strange that I can’t call her up right now to chat about something, or nothing. We lived a few blocks away from each other and we saw or spoke to each other almost every day.

I did her highlights in the bathroom of her boyfriend’s apartment (she moved out of hers during Reading Week) and we tried to chat like normal. We acted like it wasn’t a big deal that we wouldn’t see each other for the next two months.

The goodbye was sad and I rushed it so I wouldn’t cry. I sent her a text message later to tell her how much I would miss her, but that I hoped she had a great experience. (How Gen Y am I?)

I’ve spent the days since then working on the new project I mentioned in my last post. We officially launched it today.

The TalentEgg Career Incubator is an online career magazine for Canadian post-secondary students and recent graduates, and an extension of the main TalentEgg.ca website. I’m the editor.

I’m still working on putting together a larger writing team (if anyone is interested in writing for us, please let me know) and it’s a bit of a work in progress, but we’re so excited about it and so looking forward to turning it into an invaluable resource for Canadian students and recent graduates, especially considering the current economic climate.

I’m having so much fun being part of the TalentEgg team again and working with the really bright, ambitious students and recent grads who have volunteered to contribute content. Lauren and I are also working on putting together some fun (but also purposeful) group activities for the team once it grows a bit.

And, of course, my personal life is extremely tumultuous at the moment as well. I won’t go into details, but my life will be probably changing a lot very soon. It’s sad, but it’s something which needs to be done if I’m going to start my life on the right foot.

I’m also starting my internship at the National Post tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. The editor I’m working with told me to show up with “ideas and enthusiasm,” and to be honest, I’m a little short on both at the moment. I’m so nervous and I’m still not sure if it was the right choice for me, but it’s too late to go back now. I just hope I can do an amazing job there and leave feeling good about my work.

I suppose I’m just a worry wart. I love change when it comes, but until it actually arrives and I’m certain about what’s happening, all I can do is worry, worry and worry some more.

What if my helicopter parent is no longer hovering?

As a young woman, a university student and a member of Generation Y, it’s impossible to get away from conversations about parents and, in particular, mothers.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my dad. And I’m sure most people love their dads too. But there’s something different and special about mothers.

My friends and colleagues complain about their nosy, bossy mom in one breath and then list everything she’s doing for them in the next. They receive texts, emails and phone calls, and, if they live away from home, the occasional visit once a month or so.

They call their mom when they have a problem and are more like sisters or old friends than mother and daughter. They receive care packages, thoughtful and practical gifts, and clothes that actually fit.

If you don’t know me, or you haven’t visited the about me page yet, my mom died of cancer almost five years ago when I was 18.

…

Phew. OK. The bomb has dropped. Can we move on now?

It would be too simple to say I’m jealous, or that it stings when I witness and hear about the relationships between them and their mothers, whether good or bad or somewhere in between.

I’ve accepted my place as a quasi-orphan and I’ve learned to deal with people’s sympathy.

As a seemingly unrelated aside, I’ve totally accepted my Gen Y identity – except I don’t have a helicopter parent.

It would have been my mom. She wouldn’t have been one of those crazy helicopter parents who does your homework for you or won’t let you do your own laundry or calls your profs if you don’t get an A in their class. But she would have been involved in my life.

The thought occurred to me today after I went back to Cambridge to visit my dad and my brother. I can’t help but think of her whenever I go home. My mom never lived there, but some of her furniture, photographs and knick-knacks are there. We have to drive past the house we lived in with her when she died on the way to my dad’s house, only a few blocks away.

But I got a direct reminder thanks to some paperwork my dad’s been holding onto for the past four, almost five, years. I guess my mom put some money away for my brother and I when she really knew she wasn’t going to make it and my dad wants me to check it out.

Just seeing her handwriting, our old address and phone number, and her email address (which no longer exists – I checked) flooded my mind with memories and the reality that, after all this time, she’s still not around.

She filed the paperwork April 2, 2004; less than two months before she died. It’s not much money and I’m not even sure how to go about getting it, but I’ll figure it out.

It just got me wondering what she would think of me now, five years later, as I’m about to graduate from university. I’ve survived this long believing she’s proud of me and somehow knows what I’ve accomplished since she’s been gone.

What kind of relationship would we have? How often would we talk, email, text and visit? What would I ask her for advice about? Would I be annoyed by how involved she is in my life? Would I take her for granted?

They’re questions which can never be answered, but also questions I think about to figure out where I fit among my peers – especially as I continue to discuss and write about Gen Y, who seem to have such deep relationships with their parents.

What kind of relationships do you have with your parents?