Calgary, where I grew up, is a friendly, town-like city with a beautiful, rugged Western skyline and a predominantly conservative pulse. I moved away 10 years to live abroad in bigger cities and write rambling blog posts about them, and experience life beyond going to The Mall as a social event. And five years later, I returned depressed and broke, but very well-dressed (thank you, Italy). My parents were worried about me, as were my childhood friends who did what we always do when we are together — handed me joints to forget our troubles. The weight of a heavy homecoming, with ghosts of the people and places I used to know and love, and ghosts of my former selves haunting highways and parking lots, was all too much, and just enough to prompt me to seek the comfort of the damaging familiar. Within a few weeks, I was drinking excessively, sleeping with people I should’ve ignored, and getting knocked up because my world was spinning out of control, so hey why not my womb, too?