Back home in Vancouver, I did what every sugary motivational image told me to do and followed what truly interested me, so I became a sommelier instead of finishing university: perhaps my way of taking an alcoholic stress response all the way into a career (which I honestly don’t regret). You might call it a feeling of unsettling equilibrium, privileged restlessness, or the beginning of every stupid film where the main character needs a change in their life, but there was this prickle that rubbed against my insides every time the possibility of diving into the deep end – of whatever else – presented itself. Immigrants like my parents may have this survival instinct to plant themselves in a city that they can call home, but as a queer child of immigrants getting to know himself, I needed something else that wasn’t where I was, no matter how great everyone I met made it out to be.… read more