Aging in Edmonton
I lived in my hometown, Sari in Iran—
then Tehran, Toronto, San Francisco, Seattle.
Brief stints in New York, Lisbon.
Always moving.
Until the pandemic.
Until the silence.
Until the breakdown.
That’s what brought me to Edmonton, Alberta.
A small big town.
A big small town.
Rising on the lists of Canada’s best cities to live.
cheaper than the giants.
We always joked that I’m here in exile.
But the truth is, I came here to heal.
And to be with family.
My sister, my niece.
Childfree by choice,
approaching forty,
I wanted to be close.
To watch my niece grow up.
To belong.
I was here when she first learned to roll her eyes at me.
To give me the cold shoulder for a while,
then miss me,
then jump into my arms the next time.
I’ve lived all of that.
Always destruction.
Always construction.
Always noise.
Cranes.
Dust.
Noise.
Where you can see the city belt expand.
The city rebuilding itself.
And every spring, repairing streets shattered by winter.
It’s a place so nondescript
you’d be embarrassed to have guests
you have to show around town.
With an annual festival
that makes you hysterically cringe.
The only silver lining to a place that drops to minus forty—
is that it shines.
More sunny days than anywhere else in Canada.
And me,
Always deconstructing.
Always reconstructing.
Shedding arrogance.
Learning to love myself.
Mending the connections I had broken.
Growing compassion for others.
I learned to appreciate the quiet.
Before the breakdown, I lived through storms.
Dark rooms and wrong pills.
Hands that hurt instead of held.
Questions in windowless cells.
Back then I said:
I believe I will come out a better person at the end of this.
Five years later, I feel healed—
what doesn’t break you makes you stronger—
and stranger.
Pain gave me depth.
Exile became the shape of home.
Hitting rock bottom. Freedom at last.
The young, naive me is now a distant memory.
I used to live in the American dream hamster wheel.
Clogged highways.
Long hours at work.
Driving back home to numb myself with alcohol.
I stopped drinking a year ago.
I’ve never felt more clearheaded,
and more present.
Strip away the shiny tech jobs,
and underneath, we’re migrant workers too,
following jobs wherever they take us.
When I turned forty, I looked back
and saw how my thirties had flown past me,
as if I had no agency over them.
I wished I had lived differently.
More consciously.
Been kinder.
More in control.
But now, at forty-three,
I have learned to let go.
Of attachment.
Of wanting to control.
Of moving.
To flow.
Life starts at forty.
I live in a lovely loft, older than most of the city.
Of all the places, I finally could say:
I established a home here.
It took a few years,
but I ran into my soulmate I never thought I had.
As for Edmonton—
as they say, it’s ugly but ours.
Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing.
After all, all you need for a happy life
is love,
a place to call home,
and a warm jacket.
In Edmonton, especially.
22 August 2025
Edmonton
Edmonton in motion