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First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.

My father once told me he measured his life in garbage days. I was a teenager and he was tying up one of our six-person family’s packed trash bags the night before garbage day. I probably rolled my eyes – adults were always exaggerating the most minor nuisances.

In February of this year I moved out of my parents’ house from the suburbs to the city. Thrilled to begin my upward spiral and flourish in a fresh era of personal and professional prosperity, I was ready to shed my early-20s baggage and thrive in the maturity of my mid-20s.

I’d been warned there was more to living independently than simply paying the rent and being stingy with the thermostat. But in my quest to look forward and forward only, I had not considered the role that garbage might play. Garbage – an all-too-literal manifestation of one’s past.

In a honeymoon phase with my new living space, for a while I avoided acknowledging the trash starting to spill out of the containers. But eventually, I had to confront the harsh reality that when garbage isn’t taken out, and one continues producing more garbage, that garbage… accumulates.

I remembered being told that waste collection was done overnight on Mondays, which stood out to me because in the suburbs my father had always brought the garbage out in the morning before leaving for work. So all right, in Toronto there were Garbage Nights rather than Garbage Days. Simple enough.

Back at my apartment in my university town, there’d been a dumpster behind the building where tenants could pitch bags anytime. No need to memorize schedules, or even buy proper garbage bags if one was content to reuse the plastic ones from the grocery store.

And so the first of my great resentments was in the buying of real, black garbage bags. (I figured I’d be safe to pick up the cheapest ones from the cheapest store I could think of.)

One Monday night after work, I compiled the contents of all the trash cans across every room into one large bag, and tossed in a bunch of miscellaneous debris left over from my move in. The plump result was satisfying – I’d filled it out on my own.

I hauled the bag to the edge of the sidewalk, roughly aligning it parallel to my building. After briefly revelling in a fresh triumph, I promptly forgot all about it.

It was a full two days later when I noticed my garbage sadly slumped on the side of the street where I’d left it. It turned out waste collection was every two weeks rather than weekly, and this had been a non-garbage week.

Furious with the establishment, I wondered when this had all been decided. Which faceless bureaucrats were responsible for this affront to my symbolic independence?

Having no other choice, I picked up the (rain-covered) bag of trash and began walking it back toward my building for rehousing. Somewhere, an angry god must have seen an opportunity, for I was mere footsteps from my doorway when the dollar store garbage bag ripped apart. Like a torn teddy bear losing stuffing, miscellaneous debris began spurting out as I scrambled to catch tumbling rubbish.

(I learned that day that money is only one of the ways in which we pay. In this life, we also pay in dignity.)

The following week, I was out late having dinner with a friend, and realized mid-calamari and cocktail that I’d completely forgotten to take out the trash.

Two weeks later – having triple-layered my existing garbage bags – myself and last month’s garbage took up our old positions.

Now, I’d always assumed the City of Toronto bins with the wheels were distributed as an option, so those who preferred to elegantly roll their trash out as opposed to dragging it like a caveman had that choice.

It turns out the rollaway bins are not optional. Imagine my dismay to yet again come upon my bag of garbage, uncollected, this time marked with a degrading sticker demanding I buy some kind of “tag” if I wanted my trash collected outside a state-sanctioned receptacle. The bureaucrats were at it again.

Demoralized, I slunk back to the apartment, only to notice the garbage in my kitchen overflowing once more. I wondered, what if the elites at City Hall were not to blame? Could it be that I was a “clueless millennial”? Had I been basking in comfortable ignorance all these years?

Missing the taste of the silver spoon I’d grown up knowing, I decided to comfort myself by placing an elaborate takeout order using a food delivery app. Which, when all was said and done, resulted in – to my horror – more garbage.

I had become the garbage queen, living out of the garbage palace.

The situation was dire. I set various phone reminders two weeks in advance, knowing my self-respect and status as a resident of a mouse-free dwelling were on the line.

Finally it was two Mondays later - the big day. Midway through my afternoon, I got a text from a friend inviting me to get waffles after work. Pausing cautiously before crafting a reply, I remembered the trash had to be rolled out before 9 p.m.

In a flash, it was 8:15 and I was cutting apart the last chocolate-filled square of waffle. My friend looked up at me innocently: “Want to split a piece of cake?” I’d never heard a question so packed with unintended cruelty.

But I knew then and there a choice had to be made. That human beings are defined by moments such as these. That the hero’s journey is wrought with internal conflict and struggle.

Fifteen minutes later, I was running through the streets of Toronto like a lover with a change of heart at the end of a rom-com. Ironically slowed down as I maneuvered around garbage bin-cluttered sidewalks, it was almost exactly 9 when I made it back to my neighbourhood. Just in time to wheel the fermenting refuse curbside.

The next morning I looked out the window to see the lid of the bin flipped open and the contents empty.

A new chapter was emergent. I may even find it in me someday to buy the name-brand garbage bags. In my late-20s, maybe.

Jessica Goddard lives in Toronto.

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