Jaimee Eat World

When I think back to being 23, I remember it was one of the worst years of my life.

One of the better ones, too, in some ways.

It was my turn to decide.

It was a period of transition at a time where I didn’t understand that the urgency I was feeling to leave my hometown was tied so strongly to some terrible things I’d experienced there. I wouldn’t make that correlation til years later because for a myriad of reasons, I’d always wanted to leave.

I’m one of those people that has been ready to leave the nest since the moment I realized I was sitting in one. As a baby I’d regularly make a daring escape out of my crib and wander around the household when my babysitters thought I had drifted off to sleep. Gleefully, I seemed to make an effort to show them I had escaped just to scurry right back to the crib before they got there. You could say I was something of a prankster before I could even speak.

I’d hoped to go away to school when I was 18 to give myself a “real” university experience, but I ended up choosing to stay home and commute to Mississauga instead once I was set on trying out the professional studio engineer career I told you about the other week.

My parents weren’t really the type who encouraged any of us kids to go to a school that wasn’t reasonably local to save us all the added costs, so they didn’t support the idea of me moving out west back then. And while universities didn’t have the allure and prestige they do for some families, they were still considered a necessity, so you ought to choose one. Against their hopes, I went to college, but at least I was going to school.

Once I reached my early 20’s though, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was holding myself back the longer I stayed living at home so I started to think seriously about how to make it happen. But when I was 23, there was a different feeling emerging on top of it all; One that filled me with extreme dread. That winter I had all but convinced myself if I didn’t find a way to leave my hometown, I might soon be dead.

Sounds extreme, but it was a very legitimate fear of mine and it was strong enough that I spent all summer and winter campaigning the idea of moving downtown with friends. Lots of us wanted to move out, but it’s a hard thing to actually put into practice when you have an inconsistent income like I did and no real guidance on the matter. To be honest I didn’t have much guidance in any part of my life, even now.

No one else will have me like you do.

I saw Jimmy Eat World play in August of that year, just a few days after my 23rd birthday (as I said, it wasn’t all bad). It reignited my passion for music and recording, which is something I had spent the better part of the last couple years struggling with, unsure if there was really a place for me within that world. It was part of the rational I gave myself about needing to move out; Vaughan, Ontario is a dead zone for musicians and Toronto was where you needed to be if you were serious about it, both in studio and in the live scene.

Most people who I shopped the plan with bailed on the idea after months of flighty assurance, but I was determined. Finally, with one friend on board to commit and just enough money in my bank account to cover the first and last deposit of a 2 bedroom basement apartment in the Junction, I made it happen in the spring of 2014.

I could figure the other months out later, I figured – and did.

The only real problem with making that move when I did at 23 was that I had in no way understood that I was still carrying with me those experiences that had pushed me into this new pathway. There is a difference, I think, from choosing to move your life down a path because you want to explore something new versus moving your life down a path because you’re trying to escape something else.

I guess I was a bit of a broken person, but I didn’t see myself as one. I thought I was going through normal growing pains, the same stuff everyone else goes through, so I wasn’t doing the right kind of work on myself that is necessary to get to the root of the evils that plague you with the type of anxiety that has you questioning your mortality and compels you to throw all your stuff in boxes as you tell your folks you’re moving out in a week.

I was sure I had some sort of purpose or that I could invent one, but I could never tell you what it was, only that it couldn’t be wholly realized until I left.

I was more concerned, I guess, about just going through the normal motions of being a person. Finish school, get a place, get a job, and make a life with that – it’ll just sort of have a domino effect and one thing will gradually trigger the next.

Later I’d realize that’s a bad way to go through your life because you’re not really thinking about what you want or how to get there and more importantly, why you want to be there. You’re just sort of moving along with everyone else, even if you’ve chosen an avenue that seems to stray from the norm.

I know why I wanted to move downtown at 23 and it had less to do with the freedom and independence most people crave because I already felt like I had enough of that. I mostly wanted a change of scenery and to get away from the things I hated about living in the suburbs. I wanted to be able to hop on a streetcar to go to shows in Toronto instead of the long walks and unfaithful busses that we’d take before we had licenses and access to cars. I wanted to stop driving places because I cared more about drinking at the show than taking in the experience I was attending. Most of all, I wanted to stop running into people I knew and didn’t like; People who had harmed me and triggered that sense of urgency I was growing to hate.

In short, at 23 I was escaping – not exploring, and that sucks.

What are you hoping for?

Moving downtown that year didn’t solve my problems or help me figure out if I actually had a purpose, but I’m not sure I would have found my way towards one if I hadn’t taken the plunge to try back then.

Unfortunately for me, I don’t think I asked myself seriously what I wanted out of my life and why until I was due to turn 30. I beat myself up over that sometimes because I know some people sort themselves out way earlier in their own lives, but I’m not sure we have complete control over that so we should probably all be kinder on ourselves about the choices we make or stumble into.

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This is a slightly updated mix as 23 was previously released with the Futures album. If you’d like to hear the original cover version, you can do that right here: