I’m back in Toronto.
Six nights. A familiar skyline. Streets I know by heart. It feels strange to return without the old urgency no inbox waiting, no countdown to Monday, no need to explain myself to anyone. Just a pause. A breath between chapters.
The road trip is over, but the journey isn’t. In a few days, I’ll leave again this time for more than a month. I know the first three weeks of the adventure. After that, the story goes blank. No firm plans. No guarantees. Just open space where certainty used to live.
And surprisingly, that doesn’t scare me the way it once would have. I think back to the beginning of this drive the numbness, the heaviness, the sense that I had to leave before something in me disappeared completely. I didn’t find answers on the road. I found something better: permission. To rest. To feel. To be unfinished.
There’s more joy in me now than when I started. Not the loud, performative kind. The quieter kind. The kind that shows up in shared games, hidden doors, wide skies, and moments of wonder I didn’t rush past.
If this were a movie, this would be the soft ending. The unresolved one. The one that trusts the audience to believe the story continues beyond the frame.
In six nights, I’ll go again. Not because I’m running.
Because I’ ‘m curious.
The road taught me how to listen.
Now I want to hear what the world has to say next.
End of Part 1. <<Fade out. Credits roll.>>