This time last year…

What were you doing?
Where were you working?
Where were you living?
Who were you loving?
And how has your life changed since then?

I was…preparing to move out of our loft and into Roncesvalles, where we’ve been for the last year, living, loving and, you know, doing stuff.
I was…working where I do now, as a magazine editor and teaching yoga.
I was…living 8 minutes from where I do now.
I was…loving Rob, Penelope (my cat), my friends and chocolate peanut butter.

My life is nothing like it was – well, okay, so some things haven’t changed – I still love Rob and my cat and my job and chocolate peanut butter – but my friends have changed and I’m loving less, but more intensely than ever before. I’m moving again, to a new neighborhood, again just 8 minutes from where I live now. I’m still working at the same job I had last year – editing and writing for a women’s magazine – and I’m still teaching yoga. But am thinking about my career in a whole new way. I’m thinking that doing what you love for a living is great, as long as it doesn’t become ‘work’.

The other day, someone who I know and who happens to read this little ‘ol blog asked me,“Why do you love your neighborhood so much?” I have to admit, I felt a bit…crazy and maybe neighborhood-obsessed? (passive-aggressive question there, yes). But then I said something like, “I love the vibe here and the energy, sure, but even more than that I love what’s happened to me while living in the heart of this neighborhood. I love feeling connected to a place and time that I once had no connection to, other than knowing my husband grew up here. I love walking out my front door and up the street to Cherry Bomb for my morning Americano. I love walking a little further to imagine what stories sit behind the vintage pieces at Mrs. Huizenga. I love that everyone has a dog – even though we don’t – and that those dogs all sit patiently outside The Film Buff while their owners chill out with their Cherry Bomb-brewed coffees and baby strollers and talk about the mayor or the Toronto music scene or what’s playing at the Revue.”

My live-in relationship with Roncesvalles may be coming to an end, but this is one love affair that is far from over.

These places and people and smells and sights and sounds have been a part of my every day, even if just for a little while. And, for that little while I got to be that girl – the one who thinks about what she was doing last year and, because life is too short to be the same, decides it’s time to do something a little different.

Ya, I like being that girl.

**Thank you to the fantastic Rob, who treated me to a photoshoot this holiday weekend and also says that I never credit him for taking my picture. High-five, Babe. Okay?

Join the conversation: I’d love to know, this time last year, what was your life like?