this weekend, at about 2 am on friday night, i was sweaty and dancing like crazy in a white-gauze-and-silver-sequined dress at the crayon party, at a club on cordova.  the club looks like an old warehouse/your high school gymnasium, white bricks and all, and the decor consisted of neon-bright 81/2 by 11 pieces of solid coloured paper taped in blocks to the walls. the overall effect was d-i-y hipsters invade the ninth grade election dance, tallboys and everything. on top of that, a conversation with a friend at queen’s has me thinking about high school, and more importantly, leaving high school (or the period of time in your life that represents something akin to the modern concept of the high school experience) behind. i came to the conclusion that we all have one thing, person, place, whatever, that we have to let go of to let go of high school. this is a thing we build up into a mystified metaphor for everything high school represents: firsts. even though you’ll fall in love after high school, get drunk after high school, get high after high school, and be painfully self-aware after high school, it feels so much cooler then, because it’s NEW. and it’s an easy trap to fall into, forgetting that ‘new’ part and thinking that everything was just better. and this period of time might not be the four years between 14 and 18, it can be any period of your life that is represented as the first time you exerted your independence and really came into your own. or something. the point is, it can be hard to leave that feeling behind, because it was so delicious, but it is a feeling specific to a certain period of self-growth, and if you cling to it, you won’t grow any farther. the friend in question is clinging to a recent ex, a person who represents a much simpler time in her life and therefore has come to symbolize happiness. for me,  toronto as a city came to symbolize something similar. it was this big grinding bright mass of energy filled with people i loved, but as fantastic as it was, i was spiritually stuck there, clinging to an old version of myself because i was so afraid of change. it wasn’t until i moved away from the city and felt okay being somewhere else that i felt my eyes open up, and not only did it make me so much more open to new experiences, it also made me love the city even more, and appreciate it in a new way. once i let it, this place that represented high school and that fantastic scary and weird period of my life, go, i felt so free and unencumbered, and i could see all these possibilities with so much more clarity. and i’m wishing my friend would reach that point of clarity as well, where you miss what you left behind but embrace all the crazy things you’re about to see and do and feel, and the people who you already know that are there to share them, as well as the new ones you will meet. are there things you never get over? yeah. but that’s because you’re supposed to learn from them. these things teach you what happiness feels like, and who you have the potential to be. they’re not the be-all and end-all of life experience. when a good thing ends it makes room for something new, which sounds stupid and unhelpful when you’re crying on a street corner too afraid to go inside tiger bar because your ex is there, or crying in the rain because your stuck all alone in a city you haven’t figured out how to love yet, but it’s true. you just have to really commit to wanting to find everything you can that makes you feel as good as the first time you got drunk in the woods under the stars with your best friends. whatever that is. i also went to see holy fuck at richard’s on richards on monday night. delicious celestial gorgeous musical adventure.  over reading week, i FINALLY went to circa. i was too drunk to remember much more than the tiny white rabbit chairs, thumping music, escalator and popcorn dispensers, but the whole thing was ridiculous enough to be worth the money. the bar bathroom is my new favourite thing ever. i also went to cafe taste, a tiny socialist-run wine bar on queen west of dufferin, for a night of wine, cheese and philosophical  fun-times. fantastique!

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