Being Back in Montreal

Being back “home” in Canada was a strange experience. First of all, my stay was so short that it was hardly possible to feel that I was truly THERE, and not just passing through. I felt like a vagabond passing through a city that I once loved and called home. I felt like a stranger – a bizarre, unsettling, and completely unexpected feeling. A friend who has travelled quite a bit asked my on my first day back if I felt depressed to be back. At the time, I thought: “Why would I be depressed?” But after the jet-lag and initial excitement at being back wore off, that feeling of not belonging sank in. Thankfully I have some amazingly supportive and understanding friends who let me hide out in their apartment and others who let me whine. Those who have travelled commiserated with me on the strange readjustment to life in the big city.

Second, I realized that there were some people I really missed. Seeing them again was like opening a wound that has scabbed over – such a beautiful analogy! I seemed to have suppressed or managed to ignore how much I missed them. But seeing these friends again made me sad knowing that I would be leaving again so soon and would miss them again.

Being in Dharamsala now, Montreal seems so like a million miles away. All my stuff is in storage in Ottawa, so it feels like I have very little connection to the city I once loved… it feels like a lover that slowly slid away. I hope that one day Montreal will instill in me the same excitement and wonder it once did.