I'm not there, but still here.

I decided to clean up the blog a little bit. Ironically, the only post I left on here involves that trip to the strip club after the UVM dinner. Somehow it seems to be the only meaningful post I've put on here. Two years in Montreal, and all the evidence about my time there and my feelings there are linked to going to a strip club with one person I never want to see again and another I talk to casually... If it was at all possible, I've managed to isolate myself more from the people and things I love the most. At least in Montreal, I could ring up Katie or Jessica to go take fun pictures, have picnics with Fran, do crafts with MJ or go sailing with the crew. Now, I rarely talk to people, I can barely put myself together to leave the house. It's a good thing that I have schoolwork to do because otherwise I would just have completely wasted away. I'm not even trying to like it here at he moment. The Stats part of this transfer deal is so far one of the few things I can manage to get really excited about. I'm not sleeping enough, I haven't gotten groceries in a while and really try not to go out for food.

Montreal is really easy to like. There are just so many things going on, so many bars, restaurants, clubs theaters. Anything that I would ever have wanted to do extracurricularly was there. It's a city with a distinct heartbeat of pre-loved music overspilling into the street during an impulse walk up St. Laurent, punks wiping down your windshields pour 25 sous, sloppy nights and bruising recoveries. When it was good, it was really good. I've never been so happy as I was first year in Montreal. After the honeymoon, real life hit. Math should've become a bigger part of my life. I should've loved it like there was no tomorrow instead of getting wrapped up in these silly dramas I would now retell with the shame of having been so young and stupid.

Tucked away in a mostly dark year were some bright times. Times involving overwhelmingly good friends, disappointingly bad ones, sober nights in, drunken nights out. Staying up with Katie to do Analysis, walking with Jessica discussing Sartre, de Beauv, ideal love, music... Fran being a better friend to me than I was ever to her, loving me no matter how much I lulled her to sleep with my stories of little importance. And then there were the sailors. A not-so-secret object of desire, someone who's heard my all, someone who surprised me with his capacity to take my rambling calls, who patiently calmed me down and mediated my internal fights. A brittish friend I wish I could miss less, a skeezeball coach who turned out to be surprisingly insightful, a friend with an ebullient personality who makes me feel like someday I could be happy like that too. A boy that I could run towards and away from simultaneously. Roommates I wish I never had, but from whom I still learned everyday.

I really miss this passionate lifestyle, being near people I truly love, all of us exiled on this island of sorts, a place from which most of us were not citizens, but all of us could call home. It's too painful to stay in touch. I don't really want to know what you've all been up to because chances are, a brief glimpse into a life I could've kept on living had I not been so entirely careless with academics. I wish I could go back. Despite all the poor decisions, messy situations and head spaces I had to run away from, I wish I had the courage to stay.

Transferring was perhaps braver, the challenges I face here are of a different kind.

I don't fit in. I can't play well with others, and the loneliness is so crushing I can hardly breathe. I could take advantage of my time alone and do more projects, but if there is no one to share it with, no one to collaborate with, what is the purpose? I know how to be alone. I was alone a lot of the summer traveling, and I had an amazing time.

I have a terrible headache today, I can barely get out of bed. All this pretending to be happy is exhausting.

The problem is, the more I feel unsettled and out of place, the less open I am to meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends.

I want to get lost in this city, but there's no where to go. I couldn't walk for an hour up St. Denis and land on Jean Talon. I couldn't get bagels at Fairmount or go ice skating at Vieux Mont. I couldn't attempt to stay underground as long as possible returning from the IGA with groceries in the mid-winter lung shattering cold. When I am inside I can still pretend I'm somewhere else.