Goodbye Version II

I wrote this in April, and am publishing it now!

Around this time last year I wrote the last blog post of my student politician career. This year, my reflections are more inward-facing, maybe more selfish, although I've tried to do things for good with my mind and body and have at times succeeded.

I like going through my belongings, like culling an unruly plant. I like going through the boxes under my bed and remembering why I kept the things I did. For some items, the emotions have worn off, and I can put them in the "donation" pile to be redistributed. This year, I've chosen to give them to York's "free store" so that no one will have to pay. Thank you, mum, for these markers. Thank you, Steph, for the red sweatshirt. I hope someone else will now be happy to have them.

The Toronto Food Not Bombs is done well. I owe it my social circle and my raison d'etre. I love serving food to people, and I wish they weren't so keen on thanking us. I wish they knew that it was actually a gift to me, to give out food. I'm grateful to everyone who did the dishes when we returned, when we were all exhausted. It caused me such anxiety, this distribution of labour, but every week it got done.

I'm going to miss the Jane / Finch complex. The two grocery stores diagonal from each other, the two Tim Hortons'. The cashiers were so nice. I once saw a man solicit change, and folks stopped and talked to him and gave him money. I am outside this sense of solidarity - which makes sense, given that I'm a white university student - but I was enriched being near it. Hearing all the snippets of conversations, the hum of the power plants and line 6.

I felt lonely often, and I remedied the absence of real-life voices with podcast talk. In Bed With the Right feels the same as the good parts of family dinners.

All year I've been writing the acknowledgements section of my thesis.There are some names I'd like to include that might be uncooth. Everytime I see Prof Sterne's name, I tear up. I used to check his blog religiously, sometimes every 12 hours, for each new post. I've never met him. He's everywhere, and in the epilogues, the last, hopeful note, the academic of the future. I would love to have a legacy like his.

Especially this last stretch, though, there's one person who I will not do justice to in my acknowledgements; my common-law partner. I love her and I can't wait to come home.