2026-06-11 / / 19h50

Dear witness of my words,

I have twelve stops between getting on the REM towards my new home. I wonder how long I will call this home my new home, and when it will simply be my home. I wonder if when I call it my home, if I will clarify that I moved from Montreal, or if I will be content enough to call it my home without having a desperate need to seem as if I have a higher morality from living in a cultural hub.

Whenever I have been asked the dreaded question “Where are you from?” I never know how to answer them, I feel like there is no answer that feels right to me while answering the question truthfully to the intention. I think it was in 2023 that I had moved back to Ontario, to Hamilton of all places. I had gone on a date, he asked me where I was from, and even though I am from Ontario (as in, born & raised), I felt like it was erasing my life in Montreal. Even before that, when I had moved to Montreal originally, I would say I’m from Mississauga, not Brantford.

Despite the general intention of the question being about where you were raised, I feel the answer should be where you are coming from. Where did your life most recently get unrooted?

I only lived in Hamilton, as an adult, for four months. I was escaping the parts of my life that were challenging me to grow. I have always been a hard worker; I had always believed if I wanted something, if I worked hard enough, I could get it. I was lied to; there is more to corporate life and society than trying my best.  I started in the company four years earlier at retail level before moving up to Head Office. In my position as a Process Compliance Coordinator, I had problems with my manager, Michelle.

Michelle had started six months after I had started in mine. Luciano, my first manager, had left and ruffled some feathers on his way out. I had already been doing my role with little to no supervision for two months when Michelle began. I was so excited to have a supervisor, someone with experience, someone with excitement for procedures, and she was a woman! Michelle gained my trust; she saw my eagerness for validation and growth; she offered her ear and shoulder to bear witness to my mind. I never should have trusted her.

I was the Golden employee for the first few months; I listened, followed instructions, only gave input when requested. I don’t remember what the project or problem was, I only remember that I publicly disagreed with Michelle in front of our team, or maybe took credit for something I had done that she had claimed, or maybe I simply offered an unsolicited correction. After that point, there was no route back into her good graces.

Publicly, I was still that model employee. I was still applauded by Michelle and was given shout-outs in team meetings. Yet, something had changed. I first noticed it when I applied and was rejected from the IBT program. Her offer of support came with a psychological analysis, “Do you associate your self-worth to your qualifications?” Then she said I should take a long weekend. When I returned from said recommended long weekend, she told me it was unprofessional that I had done that.

After that, it was daily. Daily of getting mixed instructions and inconsistent feedback. Daily when she used every detail of myself I had told her against me. In our weekly touchbases, I would cry. Not out of hurt feelings, but out of frustration. It was her purposefully misunderstanding ever point I would try to make. Each time I cried, she would reach out, touch my hand, and she would offer some variation of “You cry like this because you feel safe with me, unlike with your mom.”

I tried so hard to endure it, and I had made it several months. The breaking point came when she told me that I couldn’t just ask her questions. I had to send her a Teams message. She sat in front of me. She told me not to ask, then she told me not to waste time if I can’t figure it out. It was followed up with her saying that she doesn’t have time to tend to my bipolar with constant questions and requests for validation. I knew it was time to report her.

So, I did. I cried for eight (8) straight hours. My eyes were so irritated I was crying blood. I went to the emergency mental hospital and begged them to sedate me. And what did it earn me?

It earned a meeting with Melanie, the head of HR, every other week. In these meetings, Melanie and Michelle would criticize me and tell me that I was dramatic and needy. They asked me to write weekly recap emails, and when I’d get frustrated to the point of tears, they would remove one of my tasks. I knew what was happening, they were trying to quiet fire me.

So, I spoke to the HR team for Retail. I asked them to put me back in the store, I would stay in the company but go back to what I knew, if another opportunity came up, I’d return.

I found out quickly that I had outgrown the store role. I longed for my life in Montreal, struggles and strife included. It would have been dishonest to say that I wasn’t from Montreal, because the version of me returning to Hamilton was grown there.

This train ride is coming to an end, and I will have to stop writing to walk home.

With the highest regards,

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