all around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces

i need to get out of halifax.

this urge to leave comes and goes like waves, there are crests and troughs and depending on the day/week/time of year my desire to leave grows and diminishes, but never really goes away.

i want to love this city. really bad. i am proud to call halifax home and i love being from here. but if i never leave, i will start to hate it and i do not want that to happen. because then i will leave and never come back. or come back only when i have to and hate every second of it.

why do i feel this way? there is nothing here for me. i mean, my family lives here and you can say that's here for me, but that's pretty much it. i've screwed up or something. i don't know what happened. but it's like i'm not here anyway. i am definitely an excellent candidate for "starting over". and i'd go anywhere.

the first time i wanted to leave was to go away for university after high school. and i didn't go. not because i changed my mind. because my parents wouldn't let me. since then i've thought about leaving and wanted to go but was always afraid of what i'd miss here. i was afraid that if i left for a summer or for a year, that i'd end up back here and people would have moved on without me. well here i am, having never left, and everyone has moved on anyway.

i realize that leaving now probably isn't a great idea. i have 2 years left at dal so i might as well just finish them. but after that, i'm outta here. i'll go anywhere. if i go on in school at all, it won't be here. if i get a job, it won't be here. if i were to go somewhere else in canada, it would be out to victoria or vancouver. i'd like to go to europe. ireland or scotland. i'm ready for a change. a big one. new people, new places, new experiences. and maybe i can fix the relationship i have with halifax.