I moved away from Toronto today.

My mom asked me a day or two ago how I was feeling and I said, "Name an emotion. I'm there." It's pretty true. I know I'm going to really miss people, and despite all that annoyed me about Toronto there are things I really loved. But right now I'm not feeling sad. I only had a real moment of sad today when it hit me that I wasn't ever coming back to my apartment. I've spent the last few weeks packing and getting rid of everything and the last two days cleaning. But even when there was nothing left in any of the rooms, the space still didn't feel empty. It seemed very strange to me.

Moving into a new place has always carried with it a sense of excitement and revival. For me it's always been centered around making a space my own -- painting, furnishing, living. I don't like feeling transient so I settle in almost immediately. Even while travelling I make a motel room feel a little like more than just a place to sleep. I don't bring my own decor or anything (scenes from "Best in Show" come to mind), but I always carry a "smudge stick" with me.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a smudge stick is a bundle of white sage which is believed (by Native Americans and neo-pagans like myself) to have the power to cleanse spaces, objects and people of any residual energy. Plus it smells good. It's like the Febreeze commercials where after spraying a room the homeowner walks in over and over again just to smell it and smile. Or when you really thoroughly clean your house and it just feels better to be there afterwards. Sage is like a bonus clean. Because I travel with Chloe we have to stay in smoking rooms. The downside is that the rooms always smell like smoke, but the upside is that it means I can burn sage without any repercussions. The sage serves 3 main purposes for me: 1) it overpowers the leftover stale cigarette smell, 2) it cleanses the room so I don't inadvertently absorb any of the previous guests' emotional baggage, and 3) it makes the space seem more homey and familiar to me.

I haven't moved a lot in my life (despite having lived in a few different states and countries) so leaving an empty apartment isn't a familiar feeling to me. I guess I thought it would be more surreal -- more like arriving at an empty apartment only backwards. But it just felt like I was leaving for a vacation and taking everything with me. It only hit me when I set the keys down inside and closed the door for the last time that I will probably never set foot in that apartment again. I spent four years there and I had little routines and patterns incorporated into my existence that I didn't even notice most of the time. But this past week I've noticed things like how there's a rhythm to how I lock and unlock the back door and that there are marks on the wall from where I hang my keys. And when I left I turned off the light but not the ceiling fan in the kitchen because (since I never use it) it just didn't occur to me that the lightswitch was there. And here I am still speaking in the present tense even though it's all over forever, like when someone dies and it takes a while for the reality to set in.

I wonder if after the shock wears off I'll start to grieve for that apartment the way I would a person, or the way I sometimes still do for my childhood home.

People have been asking me lately if I'm excited about moving. I am, yes, but I'm not feeling it yet. I don't think I'll feel it until the moving truck arrives next week. I'm moving into a fully furnished home which in the summers I share with my mother. So it's a little like moving back in with my mom, except that for most of the year she won't be there (and I'll be paying the bills). I'm bringing a lot of my own stuff, but my car is packed almost exactly like it was when I spent the summer there last year. The movers have everything else so the house won't seem any different until they arrive.

Like moving away from Toronto, moving to PEI feels right now like I'm going on vacation -- I just won't be leaving to go home at the end of the summer.