You have been called many things: Hogtown, Toronto the Good, Hollywood North, T.O., the T-dot, and most recently some no-name rapper from Degrassi nicknamed you, “The 6”

But I have only ever called you one thing: Home.

Toronto, you are my city. Born and raised midway between the Annex and Little Italy, I have worn down footpaths on your streets for 30 years. I have watched as you have changed and morphed and developed into the bustling metropolis you are now.

You are definitely not a town; you are not even a city. You have long since surpassed that to something that can only be described as a huge fucking megalopolis, absorbing other communities into your population as your boundaries have grown.

Scarborough? Mississauga? Etobicoke?

NOPE. Sorry, ALL TORONTO now people.

Toronto, I don’t see you through rose-colored glasses. I am all too aware of your imperfections. They are many and they are mighty but I adore you despite them.

Your waterfront, never particularly gorgeous to begin with now seems to exist purely for the breeze it provides one of the 200-condo towers that line it.

You tear down everything old and beautiful and build up 60 floors of glass and metal.

Your people are often referred to as the most pretentious of Canadians. They are called stuck up, self-absorbed, cold; and hey, as a local girl myself I can’t say I always disagree. Blame technology, blame the increase in population, but sometimes I try and see this city from an outsiders perspective and realize we are at times teetering on the edge of going the way of New York – where people are so plugged in and driven to move from point A to point B that no one really looks up and enjoys the ride anymore.

But a boring city you are not. Maybe your residents think they’re the center of the free world, but that’s only because, well damn, life is good here.

Tell me why you hate this city and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong.

Toronto, you have heart. Your people may love spin class, matcha tea and Instagramming morning coffee, but they also senselessly devote themselves to a hockey team who hasn’t given them anything to look forward to for almost 50 years.

You are a city of artists, poets, entrepreneurs, comedians, food lovers and musicians where creativity isn’t just accepted but welcomed and nurtured. Sure, you are a city with renowned Universities that turn students into doctors and lawyers, but you are also a place where bartenders can hone their talent and move on to open their own restaurants in the city.

You take creative minds and allow them to be entrepreneurs. You are a city of large corporations but also small businesses, where your neighborhoods rally around local coffee shops and revival movie theatres. You take high school garage bands and put them on stage.

You don’t just attract talented people; you breed talent.

Toronto, you don’t take a night off. You have the combined energy of the near three million people populate your buildings. Walk across Queen or King west on any given Thursday night at 3am and it still buzzes with the noise of financial district employees already regretting that night’s decisions, with servers just getting off shift who still need to unwind, with people from the surrounding Etobicoke, Mississauga and Scarborough all trying to figure out which vomit soaked blue-line bus will get them home.

And somewhere behind this hum of alcohol and hormones is the music.

This may be a bias from someone with a personal infatuation with live music, but Toronto THANK YOU. You make me feel lucky to live in one of the few Canadian cities that artists from abroad choose to play shows at. Do you know what a rarity it is to live in a place where that much talent will come to you?

You have venues with history, where the beers and concerts of the past literally soak the walls. The Horseshoe, the Dakota Tavern, Massey Hall, the Phoenix, the Opera House and Lee’s Palace are all venues that are extraordinary to hear live music at simply because of the history that reverberates through its walls.

And sure you have 9-month long winters where freshly fallen snow turns to black slush within a half hour. Your ski hills look like the premature inbred cousins of Whistlers and Banff’s. I can honestly say I have never even set foot on a hill and the only reason I have felt lacking is because of the top notch handsome dude factor that accompanies the sport.

No, your people don’t relish the winters. We don’t dance in the snowfalls because we know it only means ridiculous traffic and TTC delays. Maybe we toboggan on a sunny day, maybe a whisky-infused night might end in a disfigured snow angel, but mostly we deal with winters in the only way we have learned how to: complain about fucking EVERYTHING.

But Toronto, your summers make up for it. Do you see what happens to your people when the weather goes above 10 degrees? When they venture out, are kind to one another again, when your streets are lined with patios, people take long lazy lunches and beer flows quickly and without guilt.

You are a summer city. Your people suffer through your winters because they know summer means art festivals and people watching in Trinity Bellwoods Park. Summer means rare instances of hiking and the Queen East beaches being more than just a horrific wind tunnel of despair. It means farmers markets and taking the ferry to Wards Island. It means group BBQs on condo rooftops and trying to sneak into other people’s condo pools. It means lawn seats at the Molson Amphitheatre and nosebleed Jays tickets when the dome opens.

And you may not be as friendly as Halifax. And let’s be honest, NO ONE is as friendly as St. John’s. And unlike Vancouver, your residents don’t wake up every morning with an ocean view and mountains as their backyard. And Torontonians definitely don’t cure hangovers with ginger Kombucha and an early morning 10K hike.

No, in Toronto we couch, we self-loathe and then we eat some Goddamn magnificent brunch. No one loves brunch more than a Torontonian.

WE.BRUNCH.SO.HARD.

And you don’t have Banff’s glacier water, and Toronto kids are too delicate to handle a weeks worth of Calgary’s Stampede. And when it comes to Winnipeg….

…I’ve got nothing; you have everything Winnipeg does.

I have travelled often and fallen in love with many cities for many reasons. Toronto may not be the most scenic or its people the most welcoming. We may all get early onset asthma from the smog and raise our kids on the 40th floor of a condo building because we’d have to sell said children to another country to afford a house with a backyard.

Yet still, I have never wanted to live anywhere else. Toronto you are many things – manic, busy, stressful, vibrant, diverse, dazzlingly beautiful, monstrous and a constant assault on the senses.

But still, you are simply put, home.

E.