Consumer guilt

When I was nine we moved to Port.

We left the bustling metropolis of Whitby to hang out in the armpt of southern Ontario. My sisters were too young for the move to have much of an impact on their life. But I was just old enough that it meant turning my entire world upside down. It meant giving up the street where I, and all my friends, lived for a place where the nearest person my age was fifteen minutes away by car. Suddenly I was being bussed two towns over just to get to school.

Since then, one of my better defined life goals has been leaving that small town for something more developed But after four years of school at York and living in some of the shittier neighbourhoods that T.O. had to offer I found myself changing my mind.

I was wishing for the solitude and the wide open spaces of the town that I had left behind.

On the weekend I went back to Port for my brother-in-law's birthday party. I'm unhappy to see how much the small town of my youth is becoming just another part of the urban landscape of my adulthood.

Things are changing.

They're plowing under all the farmer's fields in Port for new houses, new strip malls and new Tim Horton's franchises. In the world of 130$ a barrel oil, increasing food prices and provincial economic uncertainty this unrestrained development just seems like lunacy.

Its just more evidence that despite the changing nature of the world around us some people continue to try and live as if their choices don't have any consequences.

Part of the reason I've having this crisis of conscience is that I really feel like I am one of these greedy capitalists. Thanks to a pair of wedding showers we've ended up replacing a lot of perfectly serviceable household items for higher-end versions of the same (dishes, appliances etc). S and I have been living together a long time so we're not like some couples who need all these things to start a new life together. But people want to have showers for us nonetheless and they expect us to have a gift registry so they know what to get us.

It just feels so wasteful. We don't really need any of these things, we're running out of room to store it all properly and suddenly I feel like I'm part of the problem, not the solution.

All of a sudden my comic book collection looks more like an unessecary extravagance than an amusing hobby.

I really don't fit in with city life anymore. But in order to make a decent living I can't afford to be to far away from it either.

S and I have talked about where we'd go in a couple years time when we move. We both would like to get as far away from the city as we can, but with our jobs, I think the best we can realistically hope for is Ajax/Pickering.

Which hardly fills me with hope.

I miss green space. I miss peace and quiet. And I'm jealous that my sisters, who've chosen to stay close to Port, have seen the value in all of the above and are clearly smarter than me.