Regaining lost perspective through the act of writing

Very little compares with having very little money. Everything in our modern society is dictated by its presence or absence: what you can eat, where you can live, what you may ultimately be able to do for a living, who you can spend time with, who you can communicate with, where you can physically go.


As I try to settle into a somewhat-musty basement apartment with bugs and mildew and battle it with bleach and love, I am grateful in some sense just to be there, as I had a nightmare of a move-out of my condo unit. I never really wanted to live there, it never felt like home, I never felt like I belonged, I went broke, and as I type I may yet be billed speciously for repairs, but we'll see. And so now, on this Labor Day where I'm from or this Labour Day where I am, I escaped to the Starbucks on Queen Street East in Leslieville, taking advantage of the wifi access to write and think and write.


I won't have home Internet access for the balance of the week. It is not as difficult for me since I'm still working at school and can be online there, but it is very isolating for Jen, who I'm pulling for with all my heart as she works to settle into the same living space. Moving is never fun but this was almost more difficult than last year, where me moved a thousand miles east over the course of two days. We have very little money to work with until my student loans come through, as I need to fork over funds for that Internet access and the transfer charge, which thankfully was only $20. Last year at this time, we still didn't know what was waiting around the bend financially, what would pinch us painfully. This year, moving a mile and a half presented its own set of challenges both known and unknown, with stressful logistics at the fore.


At $800 per month all-inclusive, the new apartment is literally half the rent of the old place, and is still close enough to the things we need to be close to, namely to job opportunities, school and public transporation. But above all, what I have to force myself to do is regain a feeling of potential: what can I do? Where can I go? How can I best tackle the formidable academic and professional responsibilities that return again a week from now?


Being relatively impoverished has polluted the idea of stretching myself as I have had to simply struggle to get by. It has been eye-opening for reasons I never wanted to experience, but which I will continue to experience for at least the next 12 months. Reading about leadership, innovation, and high-minded business ideas seems like a pretty big load of shit when I can barely afford to eat and am down to only two pairs of shoes, one of which is a dress pair with steadily eroding show leather, the other a pair of running shoes which require daily baking soda so as not to crinkle my own nose, much less that of others. So how to relate this to that of the charmed people I'm in school with?


First, I need to remember that plenty of people are working mightily to get through financially; several of my friends moved back in with their parents last year to get through school and have enough money for things. Second, relating it to other people really isn't all that important: no one needs to know how much I have to struggle, no one needs to know plenty of things. They only need to know what I tell them, and oftentimes not even that.


So as the year starts, the steady development of my inner Machiavelli will continue, my efforts will work, and I will reread things like this when the need to buoy my own confidence comes around again. Despite the struggle, and perhaps because of it, I remain grateful for this new day.