Yesterday I finally settled on an opinion of toronto: I’m not really a fan. I don’t hate the city, but I’ve moved from indifference to actively not liking it here. I’m irritated and annoyed by how long the commute to work is. About how dysfunctional the transit is. About how the trans spaces are run by the sort of ppl who invite the police to march with ‘us’. I find it dull here. And the sorts of things that I do like to do are way too fucking expensive (like the opera… so far out of my ability to afford). I don’t find the food here all that great. Now I want to leave but I have no where to go. Or rather: this is where I must remain, because there are no other options.

Literally the only thing I like about this city is the healthcare. I’ve never had this much access to it in my life. It’s easy to find a family doctor here. Easy enough that I have choices. It’s taken me about a month to locate a doctor who’ll do hormones and to (if tomorrow goes as planned) actually prescribe them for me. There is no other city in canada where I’d have this kind of access.

One of the reasons why my health is presently such a mess is that I haven’t had a primary care physician since I was in my early teens. I only saw doctors when it was strictly necessary or unavoidable (like getting strep throat or doing STI screening). My biggest worry about moving somewhere else is wondering wtf I’m going to do about my current prescriptions and stuff.

I think one of the worst contradictions of my life/mind is the fact that what I desperately crave is a home but I don’t seem to feel settled anywhere ever. I hate moving but few places (and no where I’ve lived) make me feel like staying. All I want to do is find a home and never have to leave again.

A part of me knows that this restlessness and discontent is all about me and not the places I live.

Ever since the first time my dad kicked me out of the house when I was fourteen, I’ve been drifting. I’ve known very little stability in all the time since. I think the longest span of time where I lived in the same place was with my abusive roommate in Vancouver for four (five?) years. And my current place with my br0 for the past 4ish years.

It’s been 19 years of me drifting and never quite feeling at home, settled, comfortable, safe.

I’ve moved so many times. I just counted and I’ve moved 22 times in the past 19 years and lived in 6 different cities (calgary, vancouver, tianjin, charlottetown, ottwa, and toronto). I once moved cities four times within a single calendar year.

I hate moving and I don’t like travelling… and yet, this is apparently my life.

Part of this, I think, isn’t really about home inasmuch as about rest and respite. I’m tired. I want to be able to lay my head down and just… rest. But I know I can’t. At least not unless I just want to die sooner than later (which is tempting…).

Another part of this restlessness is that I’m always trying to escape. I feel trapped by my life. Trapped because living only makes me want to die… and some part of me wants to live and thinks the only solution is to run away somewhere else. Of course, I ought to know better than most that this doesn’t work.

Because, it seems, the problem isn’t where I live but me. And life in general. Nowhere in canada is going to be a magical place where racism, ableism, transmisogyny, capitalism, and all that other junk don’t exist. Going out of canada isn’t a solution since these all exist everywhere. Where ever I live, I’ll still be the mentally ill, disabled mess that I am.

Why not, then, stay in the place where I – at the very least – have good access to healthcare? It’s sensible. And doesn’t involve the pain of moving.

But I’m tired. I feel trapped. I think about the next few years and just want to die. It feels like an existential fate worse than death. Perhaps it actually is. Its hard not to feel like this life is a punishment for some past misdeed.