My alarm goes off at 6:05 AM. There’s a giant stack of dirty dishes in the sink; clothes are scattered all over the floor; eight empty soda cans are on the kitchen table; the cats’ litter boxes haven’t been scooped for three days. I feel like I’m already losing the day before I’ve even gotten out of bed.

The voice in my head says to make myself a bowl of oatmeal at home. But instead I decide to put on a hoodie and walk two blocks down to the local convenience store. I head straight to the energy drink section. The can of “Ghost Orange Cream” catches my eye, and I decide immediately that this is the one. I crack it open and sip on it while going on a walk around the block. It tastes like liquid battery acid and fruit syrup.

Soon after I head to my customer service job at the airport. Eight and a half hours later, my eyes are tired from the fluorescent lighting and the dusty air, and the chatter on the SkyTrain is a nice change after a day of English and French announcements and large crowds moving past with suitcases. As I exit the station, I go straight to Wendy’s across the street. They have a giant touch screen soda machine, with probably over a hundred different flavours. I fill an extra large cup with ice and choose Grape Diet Fanta. I like to drink it while walking home instead of taking the bus.

I put my headphones on. On this particular day, I chose a Gorillaz album I listened to a lot last summer. I think back to August, when the air smelled of wildfire smoke. I had just moved into a new place. I remember scrambling over meal prep and laundry and trying to figure out paperwork for my wife’s immigration sponsorship application.

As I am walking past the auto-body shops and the brick low-rises, the soda half finished, I often imagine myself as an exhausted medical resident doing a thirty-six-hour shift in a hospital somewhere, looking back at this exact year as the time when life was simple. When I just worked a basic customer service job, and after work, I had twenty-five minutes of freedom with a giant purple drink.