February 14, 2003, Toronto, Ontario.
That year, Valentine's Day fell on a Friday. I remember this because neither my then-boyfriend nor I had classes that day. We were in our final year at Trinity College at U of T, living off-campus in two different houses, each hilarious and sketchy and entertaining in their own ways. It was a constant push and pull that year about whose house we'd crash at--we'd basically spent the two previous years living together, first in his tiny residence room (I only went home to shower, watch the Young and the Restless in the common room, and get sloppy-drunk with my best girls before stumbling back across the street to go to sleep), and then in an ill-fated attempt at cohabitation with two other friends in what we lovingly dubbed the Portuguese Key-Cutting District of Toronto, a West end neighbourhood that is now way cooler than it was when it was the only area in our price range. After that year of sharing a bedroom nose-dived us into near-breakup territory, we made the mature decision to live under separate roofs for our last year of school, although we still spent nearly every night together.
So on that particular Friday in Toronto, we woke up in my poorly-heated house on Walmer Road. I'd spent half of the night having an overblown anxiety attack about the university's exam schedule, which was set to be posted first thing on the 14th. I only had one exam that year (Chaucer. Oh, Chaucer. What a fine way to spend every Thursday evening) and so dreaded the possibility that it might not be scheduled till the last day of the exam period, which, at U of T, went on for approximately seventeen months. I'd been kicked in the tail by this sort of late exam curse every year of my academic career, and it was horrible. I was a fairly neurotic student, and I was so damned ready to bid goodbye to my undergrad career. The first thing I did after jumping out of bed was get online, only to discover that HOT DAMN, my exam was set for the very earliest possible day. Naturally, I interpreted this as a sign from the universe (a decision likely propelled by our tendency to wake and bake whenever possible). Feeling high on freedom, among other things, we set out to spend the day together.
Our relationship was a sweet one, most of the time, characterized by the things that draw two people together when they're young and broke and too smart for their own good: long days and nights spent in bed discussing our desert island records, second-hand CDs, cheap nights at the museum, afternoons trolling bookstores with our arms around one another. Though we both pretended to deplore romance and goofy sentimentality, we also not-so-secretly loved going on Dates, getting dressed up (which in our case usually meant a slightly less faded pair of Value VIllage corduroys and maybe a borrowed peacoat), walking around town, just being two crazy kids in love. Toronto was a good city in which to be head over heels. It was a place where you could delude yourself into feeling like an extra in a low-rent Woody Allen movie about silly heartbreak.
That Valentine's Day, we took advantage of the city at our feet and our empty schedules. We had breakfast at our favourite breakfast joint. We smoked pot on Philosopher's Walk, that funny little pathway between Trinity and the Royal Ontario Museum, the scene of so many of our best and worst nights. We made our way to the movie theatre to see a matinee of Chicago (to this day he is still, I think, the only boy I've ever known who would sit happily through musicals), and eventually walked all the way home to his place in Little Italy. There, his housemates were watching a documentary about Michael Jackson that had captured the attention of the Western world that winter. We watched it in amazement, and tried to parse it in some kind of anthropological, academic way (never underestimate the insufferability of a gaggle of humanities students). Eventually we climbed up to bed, and fell asleep together, spooning, perfectly connected.
It's nothing special, I know. I don't know why I remember it so specifically, but I do. I know every couple goes on dates like this. Maybe that's part of why I love the memory so much: because it feels so uniquely mine, and yet it's not all that different from anyone else's. We're all walking around starring in the movies of our lives, playing supporting roles in others' stories while assuming the lead in our own. There's a whole lot of loving narrative going on on these streets of ours, and regardless of how tragic the inevitable ending might have been, there's something nice about knowing you've contributed your own little piece of the story to the pot.
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