I’ve been googling how to be a decent adult, not die of scabies in Toronto, etc., and I come to learn that your rent is considered ‘affordable’ only if it takes up no more than 1/3 of your monthly income. I say: PAH! Who in the hell is paying their living expenses and then banking 66% of their income—not me or anyone I know, that’s for sure.
Right now, my rent is $540, hydro runs me about $40-50, internet $60, which means I’m paying around $650 a month for a vaguely functional, occasionally leaky, living space. I made about $1080 a month teaching (I know, I know, a very lucrative career choice), which means that 60% of my income went towards apartment-age.
And, despite leaks, I’ve lived here pretty comfortably—I mean, I probably eat more raman than is considered explicitly ‘healthy,’ but ain’t no thang: I wear away the sodium biking everywhere.*
Anyways, I’ve been looking into apartments in the GTA via kijiji.ca and the situation isn’t so dire as I had imagined. You can get a pretty stellar apartment for $800-900 incl., which, I think, means I only have to rake in $1,300-1,400 a month. It comes down to finding a $12 an hour job for a little under 30 hours a week. I feel that this is very much within my capabilities. If I can teach university, I can, er, serve coffee, right?
I think I can. And so I now dedicate myself to finding a lodging that’s ‘affordable’ for real people.
*That statement really has no basis in any kind of medical science. My body is probably overburdened with sodium at all times.
Well, last night I got drunk and emailed three of my best friends in Toronto, asking to impose on their hospitality at the end of the month. The plan is to go scout out apartments for June. I don’t know if Toronto is my ideal city, but I know people there and there are certainly more employment opportunities than there are here—Windsor, ON; an automotive city, across the bridge from Detroit, which boasts, last I checked, a 14% unemployment rate.
Of course, Windsor isn’t without its charm: my mom and dad are here, as are friends—but less and less, as people move away for the same reasons that are prompting me to leave.
The thing is, I don’t know if big city life suits me; somehow or other I’d rather live in an old house with a rusty kettle, worn floors, and an overgrown backyard with a chicken coop. I’m not exactly a fast-paced city girl; I want to be able to sit on the back porch, drink wine, and watch squirrels hop around. Can I find this in Toronto? And can I afford it if I do? If I go, I imagine I’ll end up either in a basement apartment or, possibly, with a roommate in a 2 bedroom.
I’ve also thought about Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary. Beautiful cities, but ones wherein I know almost no one, and that’s daunting. I’m not the most extroverted person—I mean, I get by alright and manage to meet new people now and again, but I’m a little quiet, and how horrible to move to a new city and have no one to meet for coffee or have over for dinner. And then, they’re not exactly cheap places to live either.
Where to live is the first decision, but how to make it. I’m stumped.
This is me. In ten days I will have finished all the requisite work to be deemed, by the University of Windsor, a master of English language and literature. Bravo, bravo, you might say…
What this really means, however, is that I emerge into the world unemployed after having spent two years with a steady job as either a teaching assistant or, in the latter year, a teacher myself, the lease on my apartment is nearly up, and all that wonderful money the fine people at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council were giving me to write long papers with small readerships stops. Daunting, certainly. I might also mention that two days ago, after a regular scheduled trip to the grocery store, my boyfriend of about a year and a half sat me down and broke up with me.
So, here I am. With a cat, some furniture, and about a million uncertainties. Where should I hang my hat now? What should I do with my days? Should I return, next year, for doctoral work? Where? How to pay for it all? I am faced with nothing short of a complete refiguring of my life.
And so I thought I would give myself at least one constant: a blog. If I can figure this year as a project, it might stop me from being completely overwhelmed by the fact that I’m nearly a living embodiment of Dylan’s rolling stone. And I didn’t get where I am by being bad at projects, after all. More than this, though, I am, in this moment, a curiosity to myself. I’ve always been able, until now, to look ahead and see where I was going to be in a year, two years. Now, I’m not sure what next month is going to look like.
I give myself, in all of my uncertainty, one guiding principle: to spend this year doing things out of either a sense of fun or of love. That means not doing anything I detest because I think it’s necessary or because I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t. This is an active pursuit of happiness. With that, I suppose I set out on something like an adventure.
