Love in a time of construction isn’t easy; just ask a Torontonian.

Living in a city where change is the only constant, where everything’s always temporary, can be deeply unsettling. A city under construction is a city under siege. The enemy may be us, but that doesn’t lessen the gnawing uncertainty about where construction will break out next. Where will road crews set up traffic signs and start closing lanes? Where will the next condo tower appear? Where will the next detour or sidewalk closing be?

Aside from the sheer inconvenience of it all — something no one should underestimate — the building boom that has forever altered the face of the whole Greater Toronto Area has left residents feeling crabby and stressed out.

We should be thrilled, of course; cities around the planet would give their eye teeth to have the kind of growth with which we are overly familiar. They look at Toronto and are agog; how can so many towers be under construction in one city, and one outside China?

What they don’t see is the psychological toll of hyper-growth. Toronto is the adolescent who grows not 2 inches in a year but 2 feet. It is a city unable to keep up with itself. Nothing fits. New shoes are needed before the old ones have been broken in.

We are unrecognizable, even to ourselves, especially to ourselves. We no longer know who we are. We’re told the city is the world. But what does that mean?

In the postmodern era, the best we can hope for is that our immediate landscape remains immune from the forces adjusting the exterior landscape. Perhaps that’s why NIMBYism has lurched out of control. Perhaps it speaks of a deeper malaise, as sense of disconnection, even alienation, that afflicts us.

Toronto has become provisional, make-shift, a looking-glass city where nothing can be taken for granted. A building that seemed tall yesterday now looks small beside the behemoth that just popped up next door. Bicycle lanes come and go and parking lots disappear.

We forget what is lost and begin to doubt our memory of what was. As the city morphs into something strange, it slips from our grasp. It moves so fast we can’t keep up. We feel left behind, discarded and in the way.

It’s like finding yourself trapped in one of those endless slow-motion dreams where you can’t walk or talk, where movement is impossible.

Infill becomes unfill. Construction becomes destruction. Repair becomes despair.

And any hope that it will all end at some moment in the distant future is in vain. It’ll take decades to catch up on maintenance put off for generations. When we’re done, it’ll be time to start again.

We could probably be better at dealing with the fallout of Toronto’s blitzkrieg of construction, but building is messy, time-consuming and loud. Oh yes, did we mention the noise?

Like darkness at night, silence has disappeared from the city. Whether it’s the cilia-sucking din of speeding dump trucks, the aural pounding of the jack-hammer or the ear-splitting squeal of a braking subway, Toronto can be deafening. After a while the ringing in your ears becomes permanent and that doesn’t matter any more.

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No wonder Torontonians love living in those condo towers everyone else hates. From the peace and quiet of the 35th floor, it’s so much easier to enjoy the view, and keep track of where road repairs and condo construction have messed with the urban flow — and our minds.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca