little bitty girl

I am in Edmonton right now working a trade show and a prevalent issue or topic of conversation that keeps coming up is whether I am from the east cost or the west. You see, I do sales for Western Canada but I am based out of Toronto. People always find that strange and I guess it is, but the thing I find so surprising are people's reactions. A lot of people from the West have been saying that I don't seem like an East Coast girl at all. (whatever that means!)

In my mind, I am Switzerland, neutral and am of no particular coasts. Having not spent my formative years in Canada, has always left me feeling that I don't always belong. You know how you have friends who you've known all your life, and can say remember kindergarden/grade school/university? I feel like my life is separated by two groups of friends - those who knew me from childhood to middle school and those who know me from middle school until now; and I don't have a very long history with either.

Having said all that, I am very much influenced by my experiences of both my homelands, hence the neutrality of my personality. Although, being here I find myself feeling that saying you're from Toronto is almost like saying a dirty word out loud in front of children. So this is what I have to say about that.

I really love living in Toronto, I love having so many the different ethnic neighbourhoods and all its cultural diversity at my doorsteps. I love that even within a big city, there are pockets of neighbourhoods where people will know your name. I mean, I know it's not perfect - I hate the traffic, the road ragers, the smog in the summer and the bitter cold in the winter. But all in all, it's not such a bad place to live in.

On the other hand, I also really love the west coast. I love the people, the kindness of strangers, the unique, quirky sense of humour that seem to be inherent in all my friends who hail from the west. I love the laid-backness of all the various cities, and the unbelievable beauty of nature at its best.

So there are good points to both I think and these past couple of days, I've been exposed to some really lovely people and it has made me realize, as different as we all are from coast to coast, there will always be common ground and much laughter, if we are open to it.