Sometimes when you are in a new place,
The shadows seem bigger and more active.
It seems lighter and darker at the same time
And there are different creaks in different places than you are used to.
And sometimes,
When you are in a new place,
You are so tired from getting to that place
That you fall asleep anyways
Even though it seems a vulnerable and brave thing to do.
-Jasmine Martin
Well, we have been living in Toronto for just over a week now.
Our apartment felt surprisingly homey right from the get go, which was a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t sure if it would or not. We are currently in the dangerous stage of settling in, where the vast majority of our belongings have been put away and we are functioning smoothly and comfortably, but there’s still a lot of random stuff sitting around that doesn’t have a place yet.
I’m just grateful that we are as “put away” as we are. For awhile there, I was regularly hitting my baby toes on the edges of boxes. I could get most of my body around the boxes just fine, but not my baby toes. I also kept hitting my hands on the door knobs around here. Apparently, I really become accustomed to the geography of the space I regularly occupy, and when everything changes, I’m a wreck. I’ve been working on choosing to be spatially aware, and I think it’s helping.
Right now, I’m thinking about the past week and what it has felt like to be here. I don’t feel like I have done any real exploring yet, besides going to Hakim Optical, Ikea, No Frills, Home Sense, Dollarama, and a library. Those places are not super special places though, if you know what I mean.
There do seem to be many nice things about being here.
I like that everything is only 1.8 kilometers away.
I like that there are lots of lovely old trees on our street and I’m excited to see the leaves turn pretty colours.
I like that there are all kinds of people around here.
I like the beautiful, smart children that I get to be with all week.
I like that our apartment has air-conditioning and a bathtub.
I like the rainbow that shows up on our floor when the sun shines through the windows on our door just right.
I like that it all feels like a fresh start somehow. (Ricky and I have decided to be grownups now. It involves making our bed every morning and washing dishes regularly and so far has been going okay but Ricky is generally better at it than I am, which is annoying, but also makes sense because he is older than I am.)
I like our nice landlords.
I like our Sunday morning drive to church.
There are also things that I don’t really like.
I don’t like driving to work and back from work on busy roads that I am not overly familiar with yet.
On that note… I don’t like not knowing where anything is. I can’t wait to be more familiar with this area.
I don’t like going to a different grocery store.
I don’t like making mistakes, but I’m really trying to be okay with them and not be too hard on myself for not knowing things that I haven’t learned yet. If you don’t know… you just don’t know. Get over it. Figure it out. Learn it. It’s okay. It helped that today, Instagram seemed to be full of other people who were making mistakes too, and working on giving themselves grace. We are all just humans.
I don’t like parking within three meters of a fire hydrant. Sigh. (Learned that lesson. Never again. To be fair, it was kind of a subtle fire hydrant.)
… You know what?
That’s about all I can think of that I don’t like!
I’m going to post a few pictures of our apartment for those of you who are curious. I took these a day or two after we moved, so it looks a little more put together at this point. If you want to know what it looks like with everything put away, you’ll just have to come visit. That’s all there is to it.





There you have it, folks.
The beginning of Toronto.
love the glimpse of your new life… and to hear your words again… and I really want to come visit you there…you do a lot of vulnerable and brave things…
We’d love to have you guys come visit sometime! For real. I’m not just saying that to be polite. 🙂
LOVE the poem!
Thanks! I’m glad. 🙂
I’m so glad that things are settling in for you! And that you are enjoying the drive to church… It’s nice that you can still make it every week!
Yes, we’re glad that we’re close enough to make the drive regularly without it feeling overwhelming!
Hey!! It was good to hear that you’re settling in. Definitely can relate to all of your adjustments. At least you seem to be handling them with grace. I don’t think I did so well adjusting during my first year in GA:/ Your determination to “adult” 😀 the struggle is real!! I’ve been hit by the fall housecleaning bug…and thus the reality that I absolutely must do more “adulting.” Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a chore then. Did you hear that we had a little girl in June? She just turned 3 months yesterday!! Love and prayers, Kimberly♡
Hey! It’s so nice to hear from you! And congratulations on your little girl! I would absolutely love to meet her sometime. If you’re around here again sometime (or if we happen to be in GA), I’d love to hang out.
And by the way, I think that moving to a different country would have bigger challenges than what we’re doing. I think you’re very brave for doing it. =)