When you start a new chapter in your life, you can get super stressed out.

Whether you’ve decided to move to a new city, take on a new job, or end a toxic relationship, there’s always a sense of fear that comes with your decision.

But fear shouldn’t be something we … well … fear. It’s the thrill of knowing our life, as we know it, is about to change, drastically.

Yes, there will be times when we’re lost on the metro and have no clue where we’re going and we ask ourselves why we’ve moved to a city of faceless strangers. Yes, there will be days when our new boss is micromanaging the sanity out of us and we’re dying for the clock to read 5 pm. And yes, there will be days when we wish for the comfort of our former partner even though the relationship was as dysfunctional as Hannah and Adam’s relationship in the first season of Girls.

For me, whenever I start a new chapter in my life, I try and find poetry that comforts me and validates my decisions.

This is an excerpt I took from Dionne Brand’s book of poetry called Thirsty. I chose the parts I liked best so it’s missing a bunch of the poem.

To read the whole poem, check out her book. Do people still buy books nowadays? I hope so. Books are the bees’ knees.

XXXI, Dionne Brand

the clarity
of the traffic, the sky, the day, her life
her directions, plain, unknown, except for this,
the idea, the idea that she was possible

she could assassinate streets with her eyes
damage books and chemical compounds and honey and waiting
rooms, dance floors would bleed from the knife of her dress

She needed to smell, without dying, the skin
of someone else, she needed without wounding,
without a murder, without a killing, a truce if not peace,
a city, as a city was supposed to be, forgetful,
and to gather up any charm she might have
left, to sleep, to feel snow, to have it matter,
to wake the leaves, to hate rain

Heads up!

I’m starting a new lifestyle blog in the new year which chronicles my adventures as a freelance writer trying to make it in the big city (Toronto) with the help of food, friends, and feline. Stay tuned!