It didn’t come.

I closed my laptop and made tea and sat with it. I got in. The school I’d circled in my head for years, the one that felt like a destination, like proof of something. And what I actually felt was — quiet. A little cold, maybe. Like standing outside a party you thought you wanted to go to, and realizing you’re not sure you want to go in.

I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with that feeling since.

Part of me wants to call it fear. Fear makes sense — it’s a big change, a new city, a whole new version of my life that I have to grow into. Fear is respectable. Fear means you care.

But I think it’s something slower than fear. It’s more like grief, maybe. For the version of myself who wanted this so badly. She worked hard for it. She deserved to feel it. And somewhere between then and now, I became someone slightly different — someone who isn’t sure this is still the right door, even though I spent so long trying to open it.

I don’t have a resolution. But I’ve stopped waiting for the gratitude to show up on its own. Maybe it comes later. Maybe it comes in a different shape than I expected.

Maybe wanting something and then getting it and then feeling nothing isn’t ungrateful. Maybe it’s just — growing. Outpacing your old wishes.

I’m still figuring out if that’s okay.

Every year, the calendar flips to March and I convince myself it’s over. Winter is done. I can put the heavy coat away. I can think about iced coffee again.

And then April hits and it’s still 4 degrees and raining sideways.

There’s this collective delusion that Torontonians participate in every spring — we see one sunny, 12-degree day in late March and collectively decide that’s it, that’s the season. We’re in our thin jackets at Trinity Bellwoods, squinting into watery sunlight like plants that have been deprived for too long. And we are. We have been.

The thing is, spring in Toronto isn’t really a season. It’s a mood that arrives intermittently with no warning and no commitment. It shows up for a Tuesday, then ghosts you until May.

I moved through three different coat weights last week alone. That’s not a season. That’s a personality disorder.

Real spring — the kind with warmth you can feel on your arms, the kind that makes you want to sit outside on purpose — doesn’t arrive here until late May at the earliest. Everything before that is just winter negotiating its exit terms.

But every year, without fail, I fall for it. The first 10-degree day and I’m planning patio brunch like a fool.

Toronto, you have until June. I’m watching.