New year, new country, new chapter

I started this year by making another one-way plane ticket decision. This time, I’ve moved to one of the most ubiquitous cities in the world: London, England.

Living in a city I’ve never been to, knowing only a handful of people, without a job lined up (yet) is pushing me way out of my comfort zone. While moving with a lot of uncertainty isn’t exactly new for me (see blog posts here and here), this is by far the most uncertain move I’ve ever made. That’s why I’m doing it.

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When I was seventeen, I almost moved to Europe. After a few of my summer camp friends shared their life-changing semesters abroad, I wanted in on the experience. I printed off a stack of visa paperwork, begged my mother’s permission, and began putting the pieces together for my new life in Belgium. The Paris attacks happened. My mother promptly pulled the plug on my grand idea.

At twenty-one, I scrounged up enough scholarship money for a two-week trip. A friend from home was living in Wageningen and offered me a place on her couch. Her kindness allowed me to tour most of the Netherlands and a little of Spain; each city I visited was packed with centuries of culture and history that extended beyond anything I had ever experienced. Enamoured, I promised myself a longer visit the following summer.

Three friends and I made a group chat, designating me as the ‘yes man’, another as ‘the one who would get us thrown in jail’. For months, we swapped itineraries and the cheapest red-eye flights we could find. The day I was ready to solidify my plans, my mother called to inform me of a pandemic spreading throughout the continent. “You can’t go, Taylor,” she pleaded, “This is serious”. I started crying. Of course she would cancel Europe on me. Moments away from picking up a crush for a first date, I blinked hard, praying my date wouldn’t notice (he did) or ask about it (he did, but thankfully years later).

At twenty-three, I fell in love with a big city. After an incredible weekend spent in New York, I was convinced that my life would not be complete until I did a writing stint in a brownstone apartment. I figured it was a pipe dream; I had one friend there, the rent costs were out of reach, and New York didn’t fit my other life plans.

I continued on with my non-big city, non-Europe existence. With graduate school starting, I tucked both ideas into the far recesses of my mind - maybe one day, I dreamed, but not anytime soon.

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Then, graduate school threw me a curveball.

On perfectionist paper, I had done everything right: gotten into a program with a 4% acceptance rate, maintained a 4.3 GPA, and secured a “once in a lifetime” research assistantship in Aotearoa.

My brilliance, however, was no match for the compounding traumas I came up against during my time abroad.

I was abandoned by those who had promised to support me, while isolated an ocean away from those who actually could. I was disparaged at my work, and forced into research that violated my values. Without access to mental healthcare or restitution, changing my circumstances was impossible; and because my scholarship funding and job were inextricably linked, I could not leave the country without facing severe financial and personal consequences.

By the time my body made it out of the country, my spirit had collapsed.

For months after returning home, the traumas I had experienced followed me everywhere. Because I hadn’t seen the unspeakable coming, my brain overcompensated with hypervigilance; any reminder of academia, Aotearoa or living abroad set off my internal alarm system.

In time and with therapy, I began healing. I exposed myself to academia and Aotearoa by chipping away at my thesis every day until it was finished. Never getting to do the type of research I dreamed of still pains me, but I wrote the best decolonial thesis I could under deeply colonial conditions.

However, all the thesis writing in the world could not change having my psyche damaged in another country. To prove to myself that the events of Aotearoa could not define me, I needed to be brave enough to embrace the uncertainty of living abroad again. This time, I would do it in circumstances of my choosing.

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London came to me as an intuitive nudge. A sense that if I let it, this was the city that could provide a backdrop for my creative coming-of-age, and the literary community I needed behind my first book.

I made moving the light at the end of my graduate school tunnel; a promise to myself that soon, I would flip the page to a new chapter of my life. I bought the plane tickets before I could second-guess myself.

In the months between buying the tickets and putting them to use, I questioned everything about this decision: Was this the right call? Did I have to move this far? Could I be a writer and embrace uncertainty elsewhere?

I considered other places. My hometown felt stifling. Toronto lacked green space. New York, by nature of being American, entailed sacrifices (gun safety, healthcare) I wasn’t prepared for. Montréal and Vancouver spoke to me, but did so with reservation; I sensed that those chapters would come another time.

London kept calling. So although I was terrified to commit to this great big uncertain decision, I made a Google Doc titled “OPERATION BIG BEN” and started researching. I bookmarked neighbourhoods, job leads, and places I could make friends. The more I learned, the more my intuition proved me right.

I came to love London’s seemingly endless supply of things to see and do. There are 48 neighbourhoods here and 600 high streets to explore; people say you can live here for years without seeing it all, which is something I’ve never experienced but always wanted to. There’s a community for everything here; I have no doubt I’ll find my writing people, my running people, and my environmentalists too.

The other thing I came to love was that, unlike most big cities, London is surprisingly full of green space; 40% of the greater London area is composed of parks and nature, in part because of a green belt permanently encircling it. Since 2016, renewable energy and sustainable mass public transit, pillars of the city’s 2030 Net Zero Carbon plan, have helped to cut the city’s air pollution by half. Amidst a world so desperately in need of climate hope, London provides an inspiring example for cities around the world to learn from.

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London is not a perfect city, and it certainly sits within an imperfect country; one need only look to the streets still named after slave exploitation to find evidence of colonialism. And while it may be one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, it does not change the fact that the only place I will see my own culture reflected here is through stolen artefacts. For that reason, I already know that London is a temporary stay, not my forever home.

Instead, I’ll think of this era the way one of my friends described it in a voice memo sent to me during an airport layover: “I think of your life as a series of short stories. This is the beginning of a new story you’re about to enter. We don’t know how it’s written yet, or what the plot is, or how it’s going to play out. But I’m excited to hear every detail of it, whenever I see you again next.”

I’d never thought of it that way, but it’s true; many of my past stories culminated to bring me here. I dreamed up my big-city Europe plans at seventeen; eight years later, I’m finally making them happen. I yearned for a brownstone apartment two years ago; now, I live in one.

Last year was the hardest short story I’ve ever had to write; at times, my circumstances felt so bleak that I was not sure how I would make it to the next one. But I survived my thesis, and have turned the page on graduate school.

I’m writing a different story now; one filled with budding friendships, meaningful climate work, creative writing and continued healing. I do not know how long this story will last, or what its title will be, but I do not need to; this move has always been about braving uncertainty, and trusting that my intuition will catch me on the other side.

Cheers (as the Brits say) — to new beginnings in London, and the extraordinary stories of a life forming between this chapter’s pages.