Missed some anniversaries

Sometime mid-August 2008 I moved from a french-speaking town of 70 000 people in Suburbia Montreal to Toronto.

It has been two years!

Sometime late-September 1992 my family emigrated from a crammy city south of Taiwan, to Suburbia Montreal.

It has been 18 years!

On randomly choking up...

The weirdest thing about going back to Taiwan, 13 years after I left, was when I stood outside of my grandparents' old house where I had spent a lot of time when I was tiny. I was looking at a brick wall where my cousin Felix and I used to pretend we were making Chinese herbal medicine from the flowers growing there. We picked leaves and rubbed them on the brick wall, making messes of green smudges - I vividly recall being yelled at because my grandparents couldn't rinse them off. When I went back, for some reason, seeing that messy old brick wall with the green smudges still there made me choke up.

On childhood friends that you will probably never see again...

Also, my aunt took me to where we used to live right before we emigrated. I still remember the night we got on Uncle Frank's van and the entire neighborhood was there to say Goodbye. When I went back 13 years later, my childhood friend's family still lived there and I always wondered what happened to them - It was very surreal to pass by a place you dreamed about revisiting, especially when it did not change a bit - I was sort of disappointed that no one was home. It felt like I will never see them again.

On the dinky places you miss...

The first place I stayed at in Toronto was a spacious two-bedroom, but the plumbing was old and funky, the floor creaked and all my furniture were hand-me-downs from my parents. That place was full of drama, to say the very least, and I'm glad I moved out. But I sometimes miss the window that I could open when I showered (it opens to nowhere, lets in a cool draft and sunshine). Also those trees around the block whose leaves I could hear when wind blew. My spare-bedroom-aka-studio. My tiny twin bed.

On the places and people you know you will miss...

I've started to look for a job recently and every time I get a call for interview, it dawns on me that I will have to restart socializing with new coworkers in a new work environment again. As much as I have completely lost steam on my current job, I've grown quite fond of the people at work. Sure there will always be office politics, but I find each character endearing in their own way, even the ones I hate working with.  Besides, I met V there, and won't have the convenience of seeing him whenever anymore. I don't know what is harder - seeing someone from our work clique leave, or leaving the clique.