Vancouver, I’ll miss you.

I came to Vancouver running.

It was June 2020. Amidst the pandemic, I had moved back into my parents’ basement and become tangled in a cycle of ruminating over past mistakes and fretting about the future. Being isolated gave me plenty of time to do both.

I was early in the process of figuring out how to define myself, on my own terms. I spent years in the public eye of the small pond I inhabited; having branded myself as my alma mater’s “girl boss” student politician, I had wrapped my own worth up in my ability to garner votes and change on campus. 

Three months into “unprecedented times”, I could feel myself slipping away from that persona. I now know that metamorphosis was the foundation that built who I am today. At the time though, it felt as though the stability I had known for years was giving out beneath me.

At the time, I knew a few of my core values that remain true: I cared deeply for Black and Indigenous lives, I hated police brutality, and despite my best efforts at denying it, I was bisexual. These values would go on to define my writing, public speaking and activism. They still do.

But living back in the predominantly white, straight, small town that raised me, I wasn’t always safe to express them. Time and time again, I found myself striving to overturn opinions on tenets of humanity that shouldn’t be a fight. As someone with light-skinned privilege, this was my responsibility to bear; and at the same time, I yearned to be surrounded by peers whom I didn’t need to justify myself to.

In came a FaceTime with two friends from university, both of whom were faring through COVID-19 better than I. “Come visit us here!” they insisted. I was wrapping up a couple of university classes online, so I figured a week or two-long visit couldn’t hurt.

Olive branch extended towards me, I came running to Vancouver.

—

A professor of mine once told me, “We survive this world because of acts of kindness”. 

Nothing could be truer of my time in Vancouver; I survived my first summer in, and my eventual move to the city, because of the unearned kindness I was given by my friends.

My friends allowed me to sleep on their couches until I could get my bearings. They took me camping and hiking to show me what “beautiful British Columbia” really meant. They showed me all the hidden gems I would need to know around the city. They celebrated my move into my first apartment with flowers. They showed up in droves when I held my own celebrations. Most importantly, they adopted me into their worlds, and loved me deeply as I learned to love myself.

Living through lockdowns in a new city also taught me to get comfortable with my own company, and become my own friend first and foremost. With every restaurant, coffee shop and thrift store I took myself to, I proved to myself that being alone does not mean you have to be lonely. As I raised the standards for how I treated myself, it became easier to ask those around me to meet those same needs.

The time and distance between myself and my dear friends is about to grow, and I feel as though a part of my being is missing. How lucky I am, to have experienced that kind of love.

How lucky I am, to carry my own companionship with me wherever I go.

—

I came out publicly the night before I moved to Vancouver for good; though if you’ve read The “Feeling”, you’ll know that I knew for a decade before that. I struggled to embrace my bisexuality for so long because I was held back by compulsive heterosexuality, as well as internalized and external biphobia. Being in a new city where hardly anyone knew me felt like a perfect opportunity to let my queerness bloom. 

However, there was one problem with my plan: I already had a candidate for a partner, who happened to be a cisgender straight man. A small, queer part of me felt disappointed that I would never have a girlfriend, especially after waiting so long to admit to wanting one. The rest of me, however, felt lucky to have an expansive sexuality that could encompass all genders. My wonderful Keean had all the long-awaited characteristics that I was looking for in a partner of any gender; I chose him and promised myself that I would not let him crowd out the wildflower sexuality I had only just begun nurturing.

What I didn’t anticipate was Keean’s support beyond my wildest queer dreams. Of course, this is something I could have expected, considering he was one of the first people I called for support after coming out. I knew he wouldn’t have a problem with my identity, but I wasn’t sure if, or how, he would include it as part of our relationship. Over the past two years, he has taken me to drag shows, bought me queer-signalling accessories, and encouraged me to branch out and find pockets of my own community. As a result, my queer presentation, friendships and identity have grown stronger than ever.

These days, I roll my eyes at him when he tells me to let women know that I find them beautiful; but I always smile to myself when he’s not looking.

—

In moving to Vancouver, I was sure of my values and deeply unsure about how I could shape them into a career.

Falling in love with the land my first summer ultimately aided my decision. The more I loved the land, the more I wanted to support its protectors. I dove into the deep end and made working for Indigenous peoples my full-time job. I worked two jobs before graduate school; they differed greatly from one another, but both challenged me and gave me much-needed clarity.

In my first job, I liaised between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in the emergency management sector. Supporting communities through climate and public health crises was rewarding. It was also exhausting; especially when my ideas weren’t taken seriously by superiors, when staff unloaded their racist opinions on me, and when I was put in unsafe working conditions. I later left because of these issues.

I am immensely grateful for the opportunities that my first job provided me to travel across the country. My time working on reserve was especially integral because it allowed me to bear witness to the conditions my kin live in. 

My second job took me from working on the ground to working at the policy level. The work wasn’t as thrilling on a day-to-day basis, but I understood that the portfolios under my purview were important to advance. I wrote resolutions, organized major events, and contributed integral insights to reforming a national income assistance program. 

I knew the day would come when I would have to leave the workforce to be a graduate student. I left my second job because the next chapter of my life required me to move abroad. I also left because of some organizational blind spots: our structure in some ways mirrored the colonial institutions we were trying to resist, I saw no upward mobility for my career, and I was taken less seriously than many of my peers.

I am lucky to be taking the next six months to reflect on what I want from my career. Two years ago, I would have said yes to any opportunity that came my way. I’m glad I did say yes to the opportunities that found me; there are things I learned from my first two jobs that no amount of reading could ever amount to.

And at the same time, I’m glad I learned that I can want more. The standards I’ve practised raising within my interpersonal relationships are standards I’m eager to apply to my career too.

—

I have always been a writer; though I have not always thought of myself as one. Yes, long captions were my thing, yes I performed spoken word, yes I scattered thoughts across journals and notes apps. But I thought I didn’t, couldn’t, think of myself as a writer, until I had produced something of substance, something that others deemed good.

Taking a long break from social media was one of the best things I did to shift how I thought of myself. My break freed up a significant amount of my time and allowed me to get back to doing the things I loved. I read more books, spent more time outdoors, and romanticized life more. By the time I returned online, I felt ready to be wholly, authentically and unapologetically myself; but it would take another push for me to shed my desire to people please enough to share my words with the world. 

Taking a writing course provided me with the push I needed. In our first class together, my instructor reassured me that writing was not a process that happened alone; rather, it was a process necessarily strengthened by those who could cheer us on and call out our blind spots. Of course, this was a lesson we had to put into practice by submitting our work to be edited by the entire class. 

At the time, this ask felt like a mortifying ordeal. What if I couldn’t submit the required ten pages in time? What if I did, and people didn’t resonate with what I had to say? What if they thought my writing was objectively bad, and they were about to tell me so to my face? I fretted and procrastinated on my submission date until the end of the course.

Eventually, I was forced to make peace with the possibility of being an amateur. I loosened my grip on my deep-rooted perfectionism and allowed my unbridled creativity to take the reins for the very first time. It paid off: the next class, my classmates made me tear up with their kind and constructive feedback on my work.

A few weeks after the course wrapped, my friend Vanessa texted our group chat, announcing that it was about time she added that she was a writer to her Instagram bio. My initial reaction was: why? How could we call ourselves writers when we had only submitted ten pages? That was hardly a product of substance, right?

I soon corrected myself, realizing that actually, submitting ten pages of writing to be edited by strangers was something only writers are eager enough to do. How could I not claim the title? I took a deep breath and added the word writer to my own bio. In the nine months since, I launched my website, have been published in the Puritan and the Tyee, and am planning my first book.

These days, I am producing things of substance, things that others deem good. But even when my work isn’t deemed worthy by anyone else, I feel proud of it, because I come to it wholly, authentically and unapologetically myself.

—

Now I am in the midst of a cross-continental shift, towards passion.

Life in Vancouver kicked this shift off. It was August 2020, and I was taking part in an outdoors-based youth program. On our last day, we sailed through the Salish Sea, where I blasted my Y2K hits playlist and led the group in a half-karaoke singalong, half-dance party.

Fond of our energy, our ship captains took us to a patch of ocean deep enough for us to rope swing off the boat. Summer sun on my back, I took a running jump and plunged into cool turquoise waters. Playfully shrieking upon impact, I fluttered through shimmering waters, eager for a second jump. In the midst of doing so, I smiled and thought about how glad I was to be alive. 

The simple pleasure of experiencing life had returned to me, after years of dimness in the chapter that preceded it. Through it all, the adventurous part of me remained intact, and I realized it was my duty to nurture her for good.

That is exactly what I plan to do over the coming months. There is truly nothing I would rather be doing than writing my thesis and memoir; both fill my cup to the brim with excitement so big that it overflows. Not to mention, moving to a new city, country, and continent means that I will be able to experience and revel in life around every corner.

Vancouver, now in my rearview mirror, has wished me well on my next move. 

I’ll miss this city. 

But Ōtautahi, I’m ready to run towards you.