I’m teetering at the edge of some important discovery about life, but I’m not quite there yet. Surrounded by fall-scapes within beautiful Oakville—crimson roses, brick walls, and opal-leafed trails—I greet autumn of twenty-three with mixed feelings. I feel calm, compared to the hyper anxiety of twenty-two akin to a yellow torrent of falling leaves. At the same time (à la fois), there are roots of worries in my mind deeper than I ever thought possible. My capacity for thought and decision is improved. But it comes with a price. I no longer remember tiny details like I used to. I don’t get overjoyed. Things don’t stick—they smooth away, unless I consciously try to retain them. I’ve become impassive toward many things. This grand change has crept slowly over me, but this autumn, it makes itself felt quite suddenly.
And I don’t know what to do with it. Is this normal?
It’s a cosmic feeling, growing pains felt as a grown-up. Facing the world—my current world is a wiper-scape, a streaming window-view of rain-whipped trees through my Uber window—I feel at once prepared for anything and ignorant of everything.
Money comes and goes in large quantities. And it will just keep coming and going in larger quantities in the years to come. I don’t know if I like that or not. I don’t know if I miss the days where a three-dollar Coke from Subway was an extravagant purchase and a ten-dollar bill was a solid sum. I do still, it may be worth mentioning, haggle over an eight-dollar Uber or a seven-dollar Lyft (wait and save, 15 minutes). When I have to do math with time and money, it becomes confusing. Time is a whole other currency but sometimes you must find a way to do sums with it and money together. Tapping Presto for an hour of bus—paying 12 dollars for an Uber—9 dollars for the train. Time spent and money saved. Money spent and time saved. Or a bit of each spent, a bit of each saved. Which is the most profitable? I jiggle all these sums in my head, yielding a different result each day. Everyone has their own perception of what’s profitable. I have mine.
I’m twenty-three and it’s October and I’m settling comfortably into a new job like my seat at a movie theater. Comes with hitches and hicks of soft briny leather, comfortable yet unfamiliar, but I’m adjusting, figuring out the creases and crevasses.
