As Your Road Narrows, So Mine Grows Wider.

I have come to realize many things during this extended sojourn that is my new life. When I lived in Scarborough, I lived a rather deprived and, to an extent, sheltered life. Yes, I traveled. I traveled all over the city, seeing more things than some people see in their life time. I experienced things, such as riding the subway from kennedy to Kipling and back, and even riding the Dundas line. Man, what a great and exciting life, getting into the GTA and out of Scarbs, or so I thought.

Since coming to Arizona, I have made more money than anyone else in my family ever has. I have experienced a true and loving marriage, a thing that no one I know ever has. I have traveled. I have been to Santa Barbara many times, as well as Vegas. I have been to Denver, and to pretty much everywhere in the LA Basin. I’ve taken road trips to Tuscon, Vegas, and Anaheim. I have been to various places in Idaho and Utah. No one else I know has traveled that much. In fact, no one else I know has traveled out of Ontario. Wait, scratch that, an aunt of mine, and a couple of cousins have been to Nova Scotia.

I am also the only person in my family to go to college. I am the first person I know that went to college. Now, Kev and Leon are going. My two best buds have finally seen the light, and know that there is a world outside of Toronto, and a life outside of High School. No one else has. That’s life in the ghetto, I guess. You’re trapped by your own mind, and the social norms that surround you. The status quo, as it were.

My brother has openly criticized me for leaving. He is 30…No, maybe even 31, and still living at home with mother. Here is someone that has certain beliefs that I have argued against since way back. He has always tried to advise me, and I have always gone the other way. Now, I have a wife and kid, and a great life, and he’s stuck in the ghetto living with his mother. He believes that anything great that a person gets or achieves is by taking it from someone else. I am about to start at a new and high-paying job, and I will be buying a house. No one in my family owns their own house. I buy my wife diamonds every chance I get. I don’t steal them, I pay for them. I wonder who should be advising who?

I visited Scarbs back in October of ’05. I distinctly remember seeing my old neighborhood and wondering how I ever lived in such a rat hole. I got to Leon’s house, and, I’ll admit, it’s nice by Scarborough standards, but I remember thinking that it was shabby. I used to go there every day and think what a great place it was and wish I owned a house like that. Now, I realize that the standard of living in Scarborough is so low that even the nice things there are little more than shabby here.

It makes me sad, to think that my friends and family, for the most part, will never know a place like this. A doctor friend of mine, last year, offered to pay for plane tickets for my mother to come here and visit. She refused. Made all sorts of excuses not to come. It hurt my feelings, even made me a little angry and bitter, that she wouldn’t come. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, though, I realize that I have told her so much about living here. If she came here, I think that going back to Scarborough, back to that disgusting roach hatchery, would be a veritable death knell for her. No one wants to go back to hell when they’ve seen heaven.

I know that if I ended up ever getting deported or something, that I will not go back to Scarborough. Likely, not even Ontario. It just wouldn’t be home any more. Not after all I’ve seen.

I guess what I’m getting at is, I know why people have a fear of the big world. When people see their loved ones disappear into the big world, those loved ones don’t generally return. They don’t return because what’s in the big world is so much better than what they had before.

I salute you, Kevin and Leon, for taking your first steps into the world. You’re braver than most of the people you know. I also salute everyone who has stepped outside of their milieu. I imagine life is better for you than for the people that you left behind, as well.