243

Day Two Hundred and Forty-Three:     Is Enrique Back?

I couldn’t stay in bed this morning so I got up and watched some youtube video’s and wrote this.  I tossed and turned for a half hour before realising it makes more sense to get up and be productive than to stay in bed and be uncomfortable.  It isn’t even that hot in here anymore, I just couldn’t keep still.

I’ve been having issues with productivity all summer which I have mentioned here briefly, but it is almost worse right now.  Let me explain.  I look at a day like today, Saturday, where I have little plans at all, and think to myself “hm, I should be doing something today so I don’t feel like a lazy bum.” Which is really great if there are things to be done, but at this point I can only do so much pre-term preparation.  So I have a few options of how to fill my time when there isn’t much to do but must feel productive:

1)      Work out.  I do this basically as a filler thing, just pull out one of my yoga mats and do my practise or a blogilates short or something, or I (now being near campus) head to the gym and spend my time there.  I’ll specifically walk downtown just to walk back up, or my new thing is to plan out healthy meals or workouts for the week.  This is great, it’s healthy it’s fun for me (sometimes) and helps when I’m like this right now and have a ton of energy at nine am, but sometimes (for example if it is super hot in my room outside or late in the evening) it is just not okay to be doing this excessively.

2)      Write schedules.  I will write a list of the schedules I need to write for the next week, day, few hours, to break down how to do my workouts, when I should choose my outfits for the next day, when I should check the WEATHER, and this is the step into madness that is my need to be somewhat productive.  Making a list has always calmed my nerves when it comes to feeling like I’m not being productive, and I don’t want people to think I don’t sit on tumblr or Netflix anymore because I sure do, but there are these times where I have the most detailed lists because gosh darnit I am going to get something done today!

3)      Re-Organise.  It sounds helpful, but when I organise and then re-organise over and over I find myself losing things.  Yesterday I lost my water bottle because it wasn’t on my desk or beside my bed but inside my cctv cabinet for “safekeeping.”  This step bothers me because now it’s just something I do to nitpick and feel like I’m getting ready for school.  I re-organise my books on a shelf, or my workout clothes in the drawer,.   It’s not really frustrating while it’s happening, but finding something later on is and I don’t really know how to stop myself.  Must. Be. Productive

4)      I think the worst thing that I do when trying to be productive is go over the things (in a list, out loud, in my head, etc.) that I have yet to do but can’t until later.  Like today I legitimately just went “Alright I have to make a councelling appointment but the CSD isn’t open on the weekends so on Tuesday I’ll get to that, and I need to make an appointment with a different courseworker and that can’t be done until Tuesday either, so I will sit here and I will THINK ABOUT IT and torture myself about how I need to do it but can’t.”  This happens with lots of things.  That audition I have Thursday would be great if it were done like right now, that bill payment would be great to be made whenever it shows up on my online banking.  I let the things I can’t control bother me the most, whch really needs to stop.

Those are just some of the things that I do when trying to be productive when nothing else is to be done.  I’ve already gotten ready for school, I’ve already seen almost everyone who’s moved in already in Guelph of my friends, I’ve contacted professors and worked on my event stuff there isn’t anything else I can do but work out lay in bed and dwell on things I can’t control.  My advice to myself?  Take a chill pill, ths is the slow, low key time of the term, why not take advantage of that?

With a MAD MEN MARATHON LATER.

Treat yo’self friends, because we all know that this is that there time to do that.  Before we all get too swamped in being productive to remember this post even existed.

x

242

Day Two Hundred and Forty-Two:  Aspiring loco

I think the heat is getting to me.  Did I start my last blog like that?  I wouldn’t know, but as for now I really I just I don’t know what to do with myself.  To combat the heat today Devra and I walked to the Boathouse and got the most delicious ice cream cones I’ve ever seen and sat in the shade watching men in canoes canoe by and combat the heat in a canoe.  I personally don’t really understand that, because it’s just looking at the water and doing more work in my opinion which ultimately makes you hotter, but we were sitting on our asses in the shade so to be honest I wouldn’t know.  We have vowed to take a canoe trip later this week, and when I say that I mean our goal is to successfully sit in a boat on the Speed River, so, dream big.

As for this heat it really needs to stop.  With the nearly five THOUSAND students moving on to campus today I really hope for their sakes that it cools down.  I remember our move in and it rained and the water was freezing cold which was so great for about two weeks while th heat wave stayed and then once it cooled down but the water didn’t warm up we were a very grumpy residence.  That sort of continues to happen in my life as move in approaches every year, it gets really hot wherever I am (Paris…England…my room in Guelph…etc.) and I complain about it a little but it could always be worse, I could be anywhere but the River Seine-oh wait, this year I am somewhere else…

Well then I’m complaining.  It’s practically September.  Couldn’t we have had this massive heat wave during early August when I was in pants and sweaters and I could’ve ventured to the beach?  Was that not possible?  No, no, and we don’t control the weather so we leave that up to forces we cannot control, but for now it seems a little ridiculous to die of heat just because I have one measilly fan and no air flow.  Ie. The ice cream binge that was yesterday.

Here’s tohard work in the new month and term, and a new school year for us, the people who strive for good grades and a balanced social life while also trying to not die of heat in our apartments.

X

241

Day Two Hundred and Forty-One:  Social Caterpillar

This heat is really getting to me.  I’ve changed clothes so many times today that I feel like I’m just living out of my closet, but it’s been worth while.  I’ve seen a handful of wonderful people in the last twenty four hours alone, and it doesn’t stop there.  I feel like for the next week until courses begin I will be here and there, and and about in the “nice” weather meeting up with people and enjoying the lack of coursework that we all have to do, and catching up.  S we should at the start of term, but I really do not want it to stop there.  I am determined to be social this year, if it kills me.

Maybe not that harsh, but I intend to spend time with people, quality time, laughing and joking and snuggling, and that is just what I want this semester to be and so it will.  If I have anyt say in this whole thing I will remain confident and positive, I will, I think I can I think I can!

Guelph is so torn apart right now though, central campus is so frustrating, I wish it was as vibrant as I always remember.  It will eventually, the gates will come down (hopefully) and it will be easy access around and around once again. No ruts this year, all gung ho, and smiles, and getting through this because it’s what I WANT and not what I HAVE to do.  That is what a post-secondary education is, right?

Right?

At this point I’m focusing on what I surround myself with, my environment and the right people, in order to keep up wth my mentality.  I want to feel good everyday, I can do this.

So I am so happy to be seeing everyone, to have burnt my tongue on a tea today or spent three hours in a coffee shop swapping travelling stories.  These things are good for you, you know, don’t push them out.  Even when everything seems so low and colourless and blank, it is important to keep being with people, to put in the effort, because you can’t always expect everyone else around you to make up for your lack of motivation, this is your life, it’s what you make of it.

Enough of that I’m off to go back to my Mad Men marathon and trying not to die of this friggen heat.

x

240

Day Two Hundred and Forty:  Back in Black

Remember going back to school after the summer in a pair of new Phat Farms and a jean skirt from Stitches which you just learned the year before was cool and it was the first thing you bought on your own at the mall and you had this outfit planned for weeks?  Maybe your first day of seventh grade was a bit different, but mine was just that.  My little brother is entering the seventh grade this coming Tuesday, and it really seems like so long ago that I wore those skateboarding shoes, dreaded looking for my teacher, and entering a classroom completely different from those I had known.  I no longer have a locker, but it never ceases to get to me how nostalgic this time of the year is.

And then I remember how nostalgic every time of the year is for me and move on, so…

How can it be so hot?  I remember only a week ago we were all in pants, long sleeves even, and now I can’t even properly dress my bed because I will actually die of heat in my sleep if I do.  I understand that it’s August still, summer for some, but it’s time for my back to school clothes, okay?  I want to take out my metaphorical phat farms, not wear flip flops wherever I go not to necessarily look cool but for the comfort.  This heat needs to dissipate immediately, or atleast by the time I start my fitness classes.  Nothing bums me out more than trying to work out, do school work, and dress in nice boots to bars like looking outside and finding it’s still so beautiful out.  Oh boo hoo, it’s such beautiful weather, maybe it’s because now I cannot enjoy it as much, but I still feel a little bitter.

I think it’s Wednesday night, but it feels like a Saturday.  One of those Saturday nights that you opt out of having any plans just so you can spend some time to yourself.  As if I hadn’t watched enough Netflix this summer, I continue to on my proper screen now on my desk in my room in Guelph.  I miss home already…  I can’t believe I was so ready to leave.  You don’t realise how much you need your family until you’re away from them, but atleast I can text them now…

x

239

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Nine:  SkyFall

Before I leave for a long period of time it is a new thing that I organise a family movie night.  Before England we watched Finding Nemo, and tonight we watched Skyfall.  We all were slightly glazed over, it was a little long, but still lovely.  Kyle on the other hand absolutely loved it, as he just told me, and I feel we have ignited a new love for Bond that can only be real in a twelve year old.  I’m going to miss being at home.

I’m going to miss them all telling me how gross my oatmeal smells in the morning, or to put on pants in the evening.  That I always make turkey bacon and salad for lunch, and how my sister and I marathoned Sister Wives while my brother and I marathoned the Office.  Sharing snacks, laughing about commercials and other tidbits that happen around the house.  Making pasta with Riss to loud music on Saturday nights before our plans and taking pictures of our creations, spending family dinners drinking wine and talking about what is next.

Home is here, I think, for me in an abstract way.  At the moment it doesn’t feel like where I can effortlessly lay my head, but it remains a place of comfort and stability for me.  In highschool it was home, solitude, isolation, and now it’s srt of a place I come to get leftovers and see my family.  I think that after I move out completely it will be more of a home base, but for now it’s a backboard, backbone, of my life, but not the one sole place.

As for me, I feel like a sort of vagabond at the moment.  I feel at home wherever my things are, like the old lady from the Titanic, I bring most of my pictures and valuables with me while I travel.  Even to Toronto for a few days I pack upcertain comfort items that I need to feel somewhat comfortable in any place.

Which reminds me I am done packing for back to school, but I just pulled my teddy bear, Isabelle, out from the side of my bedding, and threw her in my backpack, because despite my age it still comforts me to have her with me.  Childhood comforts are hard to replace, but they are relatively easy to take with you, especially when they carry such memories.

As for me I’m off tomorrow, moving day, and I’m going to miss it here, but it’s nice to be going back….my final year of my undergrad…. It doesn’t feel real.

x

238

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Eight:  Finally Relaxed

I’ve been done work for what, three weeks?  And I’ve finally calmed down a bit from being so busy and letting myself take some time off.    Of course this is right before I am to move back in at school, but I’m relatively organised and packed (sort of), the last few things I need are the groceries, and then Wednesday (move in day) will go successfully!  Or so I hope, my list for school seems to grow with every day as we near and inch closer to September.

I think I am going to spend the evening in my bed, since my beautiful Queen size doesn’t come with me to school I tend to spend most of my time in it when I am at home.  As for tonight I plan on catching up on some vogues, doing some event work, and meditate with some yoga.  This is enough for me to say that it is a low key evening, since tomorrow will be busy until the meal is before me at the dinner table.  All this time I was looking forward to having time off and it looks like the only time off I will be getting this year might truly be Christmas break.  Here we go again, another four months.

I’m excited to get back to school though just like I was excited to get back to work this summer.  I need that constant change, that instability, the new challenges and people and environment.  I think it has something to do with refreshing every season, and it works well with my motivation and drive to get going and kickstarted with something fresh.  It’s good to cleanse every once in a while.

I found my poetry book from the beginning of this year today, it was sitting under a pile of necklaces and makeup on my dressing table and it was almost stuck to the wood.  I haven’t written much poetry lately, or anything for that matter, but I think I’m going to save my creativity for the fall semester since I am going to be needing it.  As for now, with the little inspiration I have, I suppose I can prepare, and write little musings here and there to keep me company.

Hope all is well, and that back to school preparations are coming along for all of you.  I don’t really know who reads this anymore, for all I know it’s only me rereading them every once in a while, but it’s satisfying to address someone once in a while.  I hope that you’re smiling, and that you have no worries (hakuna matata) for a safe and chill end of summer.

x

237

Day Two Hundred and ThirtySeven:   Lists

Have you ever wondered why some people respond very well to lists and others don’t?  I do, as someone who managed four staff at camp this year and wrote numerous lists that were to be done in a set amount of time, for them and myself, and saw the results of those lists.  As a person who writes lists of the lists and schedules I need to make, as a person who when writing papers writes a list of the research methods, places I need to visit, and topics of my paper and continue to follow it.  I respond very well to lists, I have sticky note pads dedicated to different lists I make.  For example, blue are for appointments I need to make while pink is for dates and tidbits I shouldn’t forget.  I have different methods of writing lists, like a to-do list is usually done on the computer if it is for the next few days or weeks, but if it is for a certain task or exam period it is done in print in a sharpie and pasted to my desk.  My lists are my thing, they are what keep me going.

So for back to school I cannot tell you how many lists I have written, and for me that is so satisfying.  I’ve been putting off packing and shopping and organising quite yet because I have two days before I leave to dedicate just to that, so I have written many lists to ease my soul of not having done these things.  These lists don’t come with me aeverywhere, but just knowing they exist is enough for me.  It’s satisfying, in a way, to just know that my past self has planned for an even more future self to get things done, and it takes the pressure off that present self at that time.

It works for me, but it doesn’t work for everyone.  For example if I have say forty pages of a book due the next day (which would never happen because I usually read everything atleast a day in advance) but say that it hypothetically happened and on my schedule it said that I was finishing all my coursework by ten pm, and it was nine forty five, I don’t go over that ten pm end just because I’m not done the pages.  I am lucky in my major to be able to google or ask around or really just bs my way through those last ten pages, because to me I prioritise mental health over grades.  That method changes when it comes to papers and things, but I usually time manage enough so that I am never going over ten pm anyway.  So now you know that if you ever want to see me on a week day or a Sunday to either book it in advance or after ten pm, I am completely free after then.

But I am saying this doesn’t work for everyone, because I know procrastination happens, or stress, or speedbumps that hinder people into going over their “lists” that they make.  But for me I can’t procrastinate.  If I have physically taken the time to write down “1-3 Read Hamlet” I will be reading from those times, and stop at 3 and continue on with my list.  It is very effective for me and I am lucky that I have so much focus.

What I fear for this year, maybe not this semester but next, is that I will lose that nerve.  That my need to finish tasks within my time perameters might vanish, or just disintegrate casually so I won’t notice it, because I will hypothetically be so close to graduation.  Why isn’t it possible that I can just finish…like, now?  If only, if only.

That is why I stick to my lists, so that when it matters most (next Winter) I will not stray from it, and I will adapt to change a little more loosely because I amaware of how effective it is…Or I will try to be. 

Oh my lists, I’ve got to get on to my next bulletpoint, but until tomorrow, hugs,

x

236

Day Two hundred and Thirty-Six:  A Day Late and Missing A Desk

This past summer has really shown me that although I do not appreciate conventional sitting at a desk (because while in England I sat on my bed and used my chair as storage for my laptop but remained settled at a desk regardless)a desk to rest my laptop for writing, tv watching, and other activities is necessary.  I do realise I could just move around my room in Waterloo so that my desk sat near my bed and solve all of these problems, but I’m moving in three days, so it makes more sense to me to just work on it for when I move back to school. 

It’s not that I don’t enjoy siting “conventionally” at a desk, I just prefer to cross my legs and if any chair does not permit me from doing so I end up a little confused in the act of sitting properly.  That’s why as I write at this moment I sit cross legged on an unmade bed with an “industrial” fan blowing in my face and the BareNaked Ladies playing, because that’s just how it works for me I sit as though in meditation and let my fingers type away and say what they need to say, as opposed to analysing every bit of word that comes out.  His is different than any other writing that I do (well, any other “conventional” writing) so it makes sense that I prefer to sit this way on my hours off.  I think it’s all a matter of mindset, though.  I’m just set in my ways is all.

But for now I will continue to bed-write and on Wednesday I will continue to develop my projects from a desk, a newly organised, positioned, and cleaned desk that will be ready for anything this term has to throw at me.  Which at this point contains more random creativity than I’ll admit on here, but I am ready to take on some challenges.

What else is new, really?

X

235

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Five:  Toronto…

For the past two days I have been adventuring around Toronto with Ceara and we have come on some obstacles to say the least.  Here it goes:

After the train we went the wrong way to find even just the Eaton centre out of Union Station, and then after finding the eaton centre we found a pub to eat in but it wasn’t open.  Five thirty am starts make for a very long day, but a good one.  After eating, and then shopping for a bit through a very large alert system  in the mall we got to the hotel where we sat for a long time.  Loads of walking means blisters and headaches to an extreme, and then got ready for the evening.  After dinner at the Elephant and castle we headed to Russell, to the Sony Centre for the Arts, and Russell.  Russell.

When he came out on stage I knew we were there and so happy and he was in his WHITE suit jacket, leather pants and that Jesus hair, and it was he was there.  We made it.  After the show we buzzed home through the Yonge St Buskers Festival and spent the evening swooning, to say the least.  Those beds were heaven, and this morning as we woke and didn’t move I knew we would be there until the last moment to check out.  After a lovely breakfast we got lost for the billionth time and walked the entire way around Union and the construction that now blocks most of the doors until we found the busses, and after the longest trek back to Waterloo we made it, taking the thirty-five back to Eastbridge, home sweet home.

The past two days has taught us a lot about Toronto, and each other, and Russell, hotels, malls, shoes, and some interesting things about the people we encountered.  My favourite was that man who rolled his tongue and then waved on the opposite escalator to us…  Well, other than having Russell stand before me in the flesh.  If there’s one thing I really seriously took away from the past two days it is that I am so lucky to have such a compatible best friend who will put up with me but also who is innovative and fun.  I am so lucky to have stumbled upon those tickets, and those friggen beds.

We were in for one adventure, and there will definitely be more very soon.   Toronto however really needs better transportation/commuting, to decrease their construction that obstructs anything, and clean up a little.  It did give us Russell, who empathized with the audience on the cost of the CN tower trips.  Oh Russ, we know, do we know.

x

234

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Four:  Apocalypse Russell

Last night I saw Russell Brand in real life, and he was lovely.  He was so strong, and articulate, well spoken is an understatement.  He was relevant and interesting and captivating, and to say the least beautiful.  I loved his show because it was not just comedy, it was not just a lecture on modern ideologies within media culture and a local world, but it was akin to a Ted Talk.  Someone who has experienced things and has something to say says it, with flair and  intelligence.  I cannot say anything other than how stunningly wonderful last night was.

I am so happy and proud to have shared it with my best friend in the entire world, Ceara, who deserved it and I would not change her for the world (despite how many times I might’ve said different hehe).  I love you, and laughing with you for the past two days has been so invigorating and fun.  Until our next adventure.

X

233

Dat Two Hundred and Thirty-Three:   Dreaming of Bow

  I can’t think of anything to write.  I’m slow on the creativity this week.  Last week I wrote fifteen pages of a play, this week I’ve edited a letter and read a lot.  I guess reading is better than nothing, but it would’ve been nice to write a bit.  And I write these, but today I’ve gone dry.  I’m going on a short sleepaway tomorrow downtown with Ceara for a comediy show and fancy ladies night, and so… I think I need a little break, again, every once in a while, from writing every day.  It’s good to keep thinking when these even if I’m not writing them every single day.  So, I’ll write another Friday, but for now I need to just take a minute…

TO DANCE

Just kidding, I’d really like to write more and I’m so sorry this is not good.  I just don’t know what to say.

x

232

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-Two:  Never Going Back, Again.

  Today was a difficult day.  I had to watch a handful of very important people in my life hurt, and I couldn’t do anything to help but be there.  I was hurting too, of course, but more importantly they were, and I talk a lot about pain, about overcoming it and dealing with it, but it’s almost impossible to do anything to help someone who is in pain other than to support them.  Today was one of the only days in my entire life I have seen my grandfather cry, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this side of the family it has been strength.  Be strong enough to hold yourself up, but also to hold others while you yourself tremble.  If I were a preacher…or then again, no.

If I could take something away from today it would be strength.  Familial strength, the strong bond of friendship and relationships, and the strength to have a voice, but most importantly the strength to stay true to myself.  It’s one thing to believe in something or someone, it’s another to express that support, that belief, and in my opinion taking a deep breath and going for it is better than abstaining.  I’ve held many hands today, and I’ve felt many emotions in a variety of different ways, but most of all I have put myself out there, and tried my best, and it continues until tomorrow and then I can relax a little.

I think individuation as a concept is kind of stupid.  I learned about it in twelfth grade English class while studying Jung and the connection and validation of your two halves as a person as seen through your relationships with other people.  In order to become a whole complete person you have to find your best and worst qualities within the people around you.  I’ve kind of thought it was stupid, but lately it’s become more relevant to me.  Being a yogi I believe in finding most of what I need from within myself, inner peace, inner satisfaction, but tobe completely honest I get everything from others.  Strength from my support system, validation from my closest friends’ approvals, so much comes from other people that I am having a crisis of faith here:  Do I continue to believe that I myself am the instigator for all of mwhat I am, or do I give in and accept that in order to be complete I must accept others?

Can I be both?  I cannot please everything or everybody, and it seems that after this morning’ I have become very…unsettled, considering faith.  Do I have to only believe in one thing, if I believe in anything at all?  The funeral set people at peace, sure, but it didn’t allow me to be at peace.  I needed to see a smile again in order to be…complete.  Can I believe in inner peace and in the relationship I have in others?  I think so, but do I really need to justify it to anyone?

I think I am struggling with justifying it to myself, and that’s something I believe in.  I believe in trusting in what I think, and when I do not know what I think it gets a little messy.  What I can say for sure is that as long as I believe in the strength that I am capable of iexternal variables don’t really matter to me, as long as I am okay with that.

Gz

231

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-One:  In My Life

Pain mesmerizes me.  Sometimes we convince ourselves we are in too much pain and cannot handle it, and other times we tolerate so much pain for such a long time that it becomes a normal state.  Sometimes pain just happens, and sometimes it doesn’t, or it’s intentional, but one thing we can all get straight is that no one honestly enjoys being in pain.  We like to feel, but we generally like to feel compared to pain.  I like feeling full, and satisfied, and successful happy blissful, but sadness, pain, hurt, neglect, these things aren’t favourable, and when it comes to comparing anything to pain it is easy to feel self pity, and to feel sorry for yourself.

Life is hard, but you can’t continuously blame yourself for how your life is.  This might sound ridiculous compared to my previous posts about taking life for yourself and making things happen, but I do understand that for some people and for most people things happen that are out of our control, but the thing is I don’t know how to fix it, and neither do you, but the thing is is we all get through it.  It’s so funny to remember back to being a teenager and preteen and thinking everything painful in the world would be everlasting, and now knowing that waves of pain are literally phases in our life it has opened my mind to all kinds of different types of healing, but also different kinds of help. Pain, in my opinion, can be tolerated, but cannot be “fixed.”

I do think that you have a responsibility as a human being to acknowledge your pain, and that’s the first step to understanding it.  Recognise that you are in pain, and sit with that feeling.  Sit with the fact that shit that hurts, this is shit, this situation or dog bite or headache or grade on a paper, this shit hurts.  Acknowledge your pain, and then accept it.  Kay, that happened, this is happening, this has happened, etc.  After these steps, I suggest searching for healing and sticking to the search.  The first thing you find to help with the pain may not work.  For example when I get a headache I first drink tons of water to help rehydrate, and only if that doesn’t work do I move on to greater pills or medicines.  If at first your pain does not subside, continue searching.  If I just gave up after dirnking water I’d still have that headache from two years ago.  They key to tolerating and accepting your own pain is to not give up on yourself.

You deserve that relief, that validation of your pain, and once you have found that validation, that tolerance, then it is truly important to move on from the pain.  It never truly goes away, that feeling of hurt so deep it can never leave if it is true pain, but eventually it will become tolerable to the point where it only hurts when we think about it, like a bruise or a sore tooth.  Pain, like anything else, is imperfect, and it is inconsistent, and it is unreliable, and it will not go away with substances or neglect, only when it comes into the light and put away properly.

So don’t dispose of your pain immediately.  Allow yourself to feel it, but remember that pain isn’t everything, and if it is you’re not being honest with yourself.  The world is an imperfect place, it’s up to you to get yourself through it, not anyone else.  You deserve the effort, trust me.

x

230

Day Two Hundred and Thirty:  Going Home

Part One:  From Sauble

I’m writing to you from my small single bed in Saubl, it’s not even nine in the morning yet and I can’t seem to stay laying down.  I left my window open all night so it’s a bit chilly but I fell asleep to the sound of the tree’s.  I’I have one last vogue to finish up before leaving but everything else is done.  Everything that I wanted to do while on this vacation is virtually done, the essential relaxation has taken place.  All that needs to happen today is planning out the next week, then back to being busy, again.jf

Part Two:  From the City

Part of the reason that I miss Europe so much, London in particular, is that I felt a measure of isolation from the rest of the world.  That’s  a silly thing to remark about a city full of every person imagineable at every corner, but it was the kind of isolation that happens in a crowd, that happens while you’re holding hands with the person you trust the most in a city you’ve never been in before.  It’s this feeling that is lost when you spend a lot of time in a simple Canadian room doing schoolwork or drinking wine or yoga, because this isolated feeling is only truly accomplished when you recognise that you’re a small little piece of a big thing, and that your life is a small little piece of a big thing, and that you could get lost there, be lost forever.

I suppose you could get lost here, but now it’s a year later, and at this point I was watching a Julia Styles movie and couldn’t breathe because I couldn’t decide if I was excited or upset about leaving, forty eight hours from this point, one year ago, I was every single thing more than excited.  Paris was bliss.  Paris, however, was a dream, especially compared to the rest of that trip, compared to the rest of my life.  Paris was a dream, anyway, and we knew that.

But I loved that trip, intensely, and today marks the anniversary of where it all began.  It’s over now.  It marks the beginning of an ended Adventure.  There and Back Again, right?  Back Again, the promise that eventually, actually very soon I will return.  There and Back Again, if only it were sooner.

So as I lay me down to sleep this evening I dream of that first night in Paris where I couldn’t sleep, and regretted coming, and AJ stayed up with me until I realised how stupid regretting a trip like this was, and haven’t regretted it since, clearly, since the moment I can I am going back.  But as I sleep I will think of those little rooms while backpacking especially, and every day spent, and how many times I laughed while travelling at myself, or how many times I’ve thought about picking up, grabbing a Greyhound to Toronto, and just peacing, not comin’ back.

Here’s to the future and the adventures only just out of reach.

x

229

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Nine:  I’m the girl who

  Won’t really care about how they look running through and over slippery rocks in a waterfall situation in a bathing suit, or in the wind cares about if their hair is perfect, or if the shoes are ruined from the rain, or if this dress really makes me look fat because I friggen love how it looks on me, and I love puddles, and the wind, and I like having fun in the waves.  I prefer to rock the confidence and courage rather than perfection.

When I work with the kids I rock four different pairs of jean shorts and the same tshirts I’ve had for three plus years, and my hair’s back and headband’s on because I work with kids who can’t see and if my staff cared what I looked like while doing the best job I can then I wouldn’t have hired them.  If I’m in a meeting I’ll look sharp, and care about It, but otherwise I’m looking like whatever will be most comfortable if a kid drives over my foot with a electric car or if I need to run back and forth to the office and back, that’s just, that’s just how it goes.

My Facebook profile picture is the picture that may look the best (out of the bunch that I have taken) but also encompasses everything that I want to convey from what was happening during it.  Mine right now is of me infront of the London eye at night rocking my Marilyn Monroe circa 1960 look and I don’t really care if anyone else likes that picture because I do.  I don’t look for perfection I look for me, which are two very different things.

I have split ends, and don’t shave my legs often, and a belly, and silly glasses and short stubby fingers and nails, and sometimes nothing I wear matches with anything and I look a little dishevelled and my glasses are constantly dirty.  But I smile a lot, and laugh a lot, and take deep breaths and care about people and am passionate about things and love, a lot.  I’ve got good qualities that you can’t see, too.

So what I’m trying to say is that I love myself the way I am, and that’s what I’d like everyone else to see, too.

X

228

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Eight:  Burnt,

I am writing from my perch in the family room at the trailer after a day in the sun.  Spoiler alert:  I am sunburnt, and I am quite tired.  We woke up and headed into town for some wifi and breakfast bagels and then off to the grocery store to prep for dinner.  We  started off the afternoon at Lobby’s which is this restaurant on the water for lunch and then off to Sauble Falls.  After getting used to wearing sanucks in the water my dad and I went off to conquer the falls!  I rode down the river backwards scraping my butt on rocks and laughing (horrified) all the way.  We almost lost some of my brother and his friend’s shoes but we found them eventually.  After climbing, slipping, sliding, falling, walking, crawling, and every other action we could around the falls we headed to the beach to soak up some sun and swim (in the freezing cold water).  Now I’m back at the trailer, post-workout in a sundress drinking a glass of pre-wine water.  This, my friends, is paradise.

I’ve spent most of today adventuring, but in the back of my mind I’ve had family thoughts and sadness as my family lost my Aunt June, my Grandfather’s sister, last night, and she was such a lovely lady.  She found out my first year of university that I liked robes and sent over a beautiful pink cushy one just for me that I still use, and she always had the best Christmas parties (or parties in general) that gathered the family.  Now we will remember her for her smile, and her impact on each family member in such a positive way.  You will be missed, Aunt June, but carry on with peace.

X

227

Day Two Hundred and Twenty Seven:  Sunsets

I am writing from the porch of my cottage at the beach and I am incredibly relaxed.  We arrived yesterday (that was the subtle reveal that I am a day late on writing this…) and we had dinner, to the sunset, and then to the pool to relax and come back to a quiet perfect temperature for sleeping trailer.  I woke up this morning at nine thirty am, the latest I’ve slept in all summer probably, and I am just happy to be here.

Last night at the sunset I had some realisations:

1)      My whole life I have gone to sunsets with my family and wish that I was with someone, a loving partner perhaps, or a best friend, but someone who loved me outside of my family to enjo it with me.  I have always thought this, always every single time, and this summer was the first time that I have thought to myself “I saw this sunset over the Thames, alone, over the River Sein with AJ, in Rome at the Colloseum, with good friends, in Ireland over the city of Dublin, alone.  This has been the first year that I’ve watched the sun set on Lake Huron with my parents and I took a deep breath and almost cried.  I am watching the sun set closest to home, and I am so in love with them and life right now.  Who cares that there isn’t someone holding my hand?  I’ve got that covered for now, and I’m really okay with that.

2)      Paul once told me that with his colourblindness sunsets looked purple and green and beautiful, and looking at sunsets and other things that are wonders and indescribeable was always something he enjoyed.  He told me about sunsets in Peru that he saw, and although I’m worried about going to Peru and affording it, etc. next year I really hope I can go.  I’ve been losing too many good people in my life lately (the past five months have brought on more heartbreak in my family’s circle than I can explain) and even this morning news came of solemn nature, and I really wish that I had said different things and taken different time with the people who meant the most in my life.  I do not want to take any moment for granted from this moment forth.

3)      Standing in the mud in sanuks it kind of gross.

I am thoroughly enjoying my vacation so far even though my cellphone has been frustrating me to no end but really, is that important?  I got to watch amovie last night listening to the wind in the tree’s after a nice swim with my dad, and today we are off to the Falls to get up to shenanigans and other fun things that you normally do on a Friday in August.

X

226

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Six:  Underwear

I was reading this article: http://hellogiggles.com/what-is-sexy?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter and trying to really understand what SEXY means.  I find things sexy in men that a lot of people kind of find bizarre, and while not revealing all of that here, I just wish that more people my age focused on quality conversations and personalities and experiencing things with people as opposed to the skirts, boobs and makeup that we wear during.

Well maybe a lot of people my age don’t actually care about those things.  Maybe they really do genuinely care about conversations, and the feeling you get when you climb a mountain, and spending four months only casually drinking so that you will not forget any moment.  What is it with everyone’s obvsession with being sexy anyway?  I can admit when I get ready to go to the bar I try to feel and look sexy, there, and sometimes I seek validation outside of my own head (because if I do say so myself I feel sexy all of the time…) and maybe that makes me a hypocrite.

I wish I didn’t, though.  It’s easy enough to say I don’t care about what other people think, but we all do.  Acknowledge it, and regardless of what other people think just be comfortable with who you are.  Maybe I’m not Cosmo’s definition of sexy but I am confident enough to deal with it.

Is that how body image should be though?  Dealt with?  Or should it be embraced?  Challenged?  Ignored?  Is there really a “right” way to do anything anymore?  Are all of these questions even relevant?  Should I just give up?  Read the article and get back to me.

x

225

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Five:  Post Workout Peaches

So I bought a backpack.

And I’ve spent the majority of the day out and about with my siblings, which if you never do it I suggest you do.  Once my brother passed five feet we all have just gotten along so well and it’s been a great experience.  Right now we are watching the Office and creating our own laugh track.  Someone once told me they didn’t like the Office because there was no laugh track so they didn’t know when to laugh…  That seems like a sad way to live your life, if you constantly need a laugh track to know the “appropriate” moments for laughter.

Life doesn’t need a laugh track, or a sound track, it just needs people with the ability to read between the lines and put their own in.  I think that if I was told when to laugh, or pause, or when to make decisions for myself all of the time life would be a lot less exciting.  So what if it all isn’t cohesive or sometimes I make the wrong decisions?  Atleast I tried it for me, for myself, and in my own way.

“I don’t know where I’m going from here but I promise it won’t be boring.”

-David Bowie

Words to live by.

x

224

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-Four:  Zeus

Should I buy a new backpack?    I figured since I’m writing my lists for back to school that I should talk a little about what and how I prep for it.  Usually around the time I finish work I write a few shopping lists.  Things to buy from Walmart and the drugstore to get ready for a semester, and try to stock up on the sale items.  As for clothing it was a lot more interesting and fun when I wasn’t paying for the clothes, so since I am on a budget I’ve already started buying new jumpers and shoes, so I need to get some new pairs of pants and winter boots and that’s about it.

School supplies is a different story.  Ever since I was in my first year I bought notebooks at the beginning of September and hardly used them for their proper use, so this year I am thinking I am going to buy a few binders instead for my practical classes and research terms.  I think it just might be easier to print things off and stick them in a binder than writing them on lined paper that I can’t see.  I buy a ton of markers and sticky notes too, because those are my go-to’s.

The big thing is the backpack.  I’ve found a few that I would like, but they need to be big enough for my laptop, naturally, and so the next time I visit the shopping mall I am going to bring my laptop case and see if it will fit  inside and go ahead and buy.  I’ve been using the  same plain bag since first year for my school things and I think it’s time for a change.

This post seems boring to an innocent onlooker I’m sure, but for me it’s about planning out somewhere other than my head and justifying certain purchases.  For example a blender.  I want to make smoothies in the morning, but I will need a blender for that.  I also need a new travel mug (or to find my current one) to make tea on the go, and buy some new tea in order to keep myself drinking it.  Hot water is only eleven cents on campus so why not just do that?  It’s rounded down to a dime anyway.

The only things I’m bringing to keep me relatively comfortable this term are socks.  I’m going to Bath and Body works and finding these aloe infused socks that I love, and then buying some candles.  These things will contribute to my mental health.  As well as some new work out bra’s and shorts because let’s be real I need to be wearing something more than my eighties gym shorts to spinning and oga. 

And last but not least I will be stocking up on my wine, because I don’t over do it or anything, but most nights are topped off by a nice Netflix episode and a glass of wine. 

These are my things to start off a good semester, the decisions I go through, and I will get them all in the next two weeks.  As for the things that need to get done…Don’t remind me.  Doctor’s appointment, hair appointment, eyebrow appointment, finish up at work, order textbooks get them bought and settled, make sure everything is working (including the printer because we all know that the first day I come to class with my syllabus already printed) and first weekend plans already made.  I am determined to stay social this term….we’ll see how that goes.

As for you all I wish you luck on your prep for the coming semester, and may it be merry and bright.

x

223

Day Two hundred and Twenty-Three:  Good night, Sleep tight, stranger.

I don’t have a lot to say tonight, it’s been a busy but beautiful day.  One of those hand-crafted days where things smoothly move from morning to afternoon, and although it was long it was worth it.  I just wanted to say that I am sorry for not writing every day, and not having a lot to say today.  I need a little break, so I am hoping that this week I can be on top of my game, get everything in on time, and have some quality posts.  I just need to keep writing for myself to keep in the game, not to impress nobody.  Well, except for maybe myself.

x 

222

Day Two hundred and twenty-two:  Such Intelligence in Fear

Isn’t it the worst when you lose something?  I hate it.  I hate losing something, and knowing it has to be in one place and you just cannot find it?  I lost my two favourite dark lipsticks and cannot find them anywhere in my room but I know they are here, it is just a matter of going through every little creak and pile to find them.  I am organised but I have things everywhere.  This tiny room has shown me how to really be cluttered it seems, and how much I need to move on.  I need a room that can handle me, along with a comfortable yoga mat on the floor and stable fan always pointed at this bed.  It’s one thing to realise that you are a handful, it’s another to put it on a space. 

X

221

Day Two Hundred and Twenty-One:  So Behind

If there’s one thing I’ve learned the past weeks during summer camp it has been that relationships are meant to develop and change.  If you are naïve enough to assume that a relationship stays the same as it has been for years on end then you do not understand humans and their ability to change and grow themselves.  There is no way for you to change and grow and still remain the same within a relationship, and so with these changing relationships comes the responsibility we have to everyone around us to make an effort in making relationships work.

For example while I was incredibly good at guiding the past few years this year I stepped back at it and let my other staff guide.  I am not the best at guiding to begin with, and this year something dropped in my confidence with my sight on the left side and it just wasn’t there.  I had to guide, but I would need to do it on my terms and that isn’t what guiding is supposed to be.  Also there were campers who I have never been close to at camp, but after the past five weeks I have begun to really enjo the company of some campers, some little personalities that are challenging and yet incredibly intriguing. 

And my coworkers.  My wonderful staff who challenge me everyday (probably without realising it most of the time) but still supportive and strong and personable.  My relationship with Lauren from last summer to this summer has become completely different and for the better in my opinion.  With my boss Jen, who has become more of a friend than a coworker this past summer in so many ways, and these relationships, howeverprofessional, have grown and changed with me as my journey has shaped them and allowed me to take charge of the floorplan of my own life.

How liberating is it to realise that the best friend you’ve had since you were a baby and you have gone through so many different things together, so many different changes and still remain friends.  I think the changing relationship between two friends is a testament to time yes but also to changing attitudes and compromises and fear of losing eachother that pressures you into changing with another person.  Maybe that’s something I am fearful of within a relationship because especially right now I am so set in my own ways and my own goals and life that it would be so hard for me to compromise anything that I want for someone else in such an intimate setting.  I am so lucky to have people around e who put up with my whims of four months in Europe and a month in Peru and jetting off to Ireland for grad school and whatever else I can cook up to throw at them.  I am so lucky.

My life, it seems, is changing right now more than I probably realise, and probably even more to people who have known me for a long time.  Isn’t it funny to realise that you make life changing decisions on a daily basis?  Even simple conversations can change your outlook on everything when it comes down to taking charge of your own life.  Just recognising this has got me just inviting in the challenges because yes it is hard and yes I know that I am not perfect but I think I have a good approach to life, and love knowing that people support me and agree that taking life as it is is important but challenging yourself (to an extent) is just as important.

X

220

Day Two Hundred and Twenty:  Last Day

Tomorrow is my last day of work.  I am kind of excited and kind of not.  It’s one of those days that will be bittersweet indeed.  On one hand I have spent the entirety of my summer with a bunch of amazing hard working students who know what’s up and how to deal with some great kids but also with some weird situations/problems, and for that I will be grateful for.  As for the not seeing them anymore part…I am grateful for the time we have spent at camp, but I’m going to miss it.  It has been wonderful.

But I need to slow down.

Internalise that stuff there, I never tell myself to stop taking things on.  Or to take time to relax and to myself.  I need to be productive, and so this is me saying for the next month I will try to not start any new projects and just stick to the reading, short goals, events and shopping that I have previously planned.  Maybe I’ll start a yoga routine, but the probability of me starting anything grandeur-esque is slim.  I NEED to slow down.  I must slow down.  I cannot keep going like this.

I am trying to reconnect with my music as well.  I think that getting the melodies into my head will help a lot more than what I’ve got going on now, which is anything but cadence, and in my opinion if there’s anything important in your life worth keeping it is the harmony inside of you.  I will attempt to take in as much of that as possible, because this insomnia is unbearable.

I have dealt with insomnia before.  I have dealt with laying awake and not being able to think or drift or meditate.  I have dealt with all kinds of things through all kinds of times, but it’s not like I like it or anything.  Why can’t I sleep?  What’s bothering me, you might ask.  I have no idea, and that bothers me.  This insomnia needs to go home, because it is definitely drunk.

I think I just need to focus again.  Refocus the priorities, focus in on what I actually WANT.  What do I want?  What do I need?  I need to sleep, and stay there for the entire night, but also I need to make sure that I am getting enough down time before bed, as well as enough time to sleep, not too many plans piled up beforehand.  Wouldn’t it just be great if I was a normal sloth or something?  Sleep, what is that?  

Work ends tomorrow, and once it ends it will be hard to say goodbye, but it’s been so great and so rewarding and worth it that it feels like it is not a bad ending.  I am celebrating the time I’ve spent there, and then afterwords get to reward myself with entire days spent in bed.  Go me.

x

219

Day Two Hundred and Nineteen:   Greek

Jf I get behind any longer I will blow a gasket.  I always feel so bad when I don’t get a post in on time, and then I sit here and complain about it, but usually it’s just because I am too tired to write something relatively substantial to post on the internet, and so it is pushed to the next day.  Oh procrastination, I am working my best to avoid you, but it seems as you have found me regardless.

I dislike it when people tell me how to do something or judge me.  Criticism I can handle because it is helping me improve, but what are you trying to do when you judge someone?  Make them feel bad?  Like, come on man, let’s be real here, this is just a preteen way of telling someone you are jealous, so why not pull up your panties and just say “Dude you’re great I wish I was like you way to go!”  But well, that’s not life.

Judgement is inescapeable, but caring about that judgement is a totally different ball game.  I would love to say that I don’t internalise judgement but I do.  It’s really hard not to care about what other people think.  But what is important to me is that I am okay with the person I am and living with that is my deal, not anyone else’s.  Oh life, how beautiful and wicked you are.

I am so tired if that’s not obvious.

X

218

Day Two Hundred and Eighteen:  Beyond It

If I wished to surrender and fall is it okay to

Just break the stability, rigid routine,

And relax into me?

x

217

Day Two Hundred and Seventeen:  Tweet Tweet

The truth about me right now is I don’t really know what I’m doing and I am okay with that, kind of. 

I try really hard to meditate on my own but I find myself designing future apartments in my head instead.

I bite the inside of my cheeks and dentists tell me it is terrible for the cells in my mouth but I just can’t stop.

I frequently use words that I kind of know what they mean but they could mean the wrong thing to I do it anyway.

I buy tons of underpants so that I only have to do laundry when my pants run out…

I lied to someone on the phone yesterday and said that I wasn’t old enough to have a banking account or card.

I don’t actually like poutine as uch as I say I do, but it’s intensely good on occaision.

I impulse shop a lot.  Like a lot.

I love getting mail and even when I get my account balances I feel happy because there’s still something for me in there.

While travelling last fall I kept a small packet of Kleenex with me in case there was no toilet paper in a bathroom I went into, I had to use those Kleenexes multiple times.

I don’t know how to properly use my dishwasher.

I bruise very easily but they rarely show.

I like to say that I like dogs but they kind of scare me sometimes.  I do not like cats really, they’re cute though.

I hate listening to people sneeze.  Or burp.  Or chew.

My favourite sound in the world is footsteps.

I want to live on a coast one day for any period of time.

I want to learn how to sail.

Hugh Laurie is my ultimate celebrity crush and I am not ashamed of it.

I drink my whiskey straight, neat, and in small glasses.  Or any glass with any ice I’m not picky.

I have a Vogue addiction.  The magazine and the dance move.

I know every word to Baby Got Back and Ice Ice Baby.

My knee and ankle are sore right now because I danced my ass off last night to Billy Idol.

x

216

Day Two Hundred and Sixteen:  I’m Just Second-Hand News

  I don’t think I am depressed, but I don’t think I am happy with myself either.  I have had a good summer, a great one, with amazing people and amazing kids and I love my job and I love the adventures that I have had, but something seems off.  Isn’t it funny that every once in a while like clockwork something just goes off?  I can’t put my finger on it just yet, but it will come to me I am sure of it, eventually.  For now I just have to use this utility belt I always talk about, to stitch up the mental space that I have, a quick fix, so that eventually it will all get better.

I have my meditation book beside my bed waiting for me, and I know that if I get back into my yoga morning routine it will benefit me positively, but it’’s getting there that’s getting to me.  Great intentions don’t always equal Great results, and at this point I have no energy for it.  Wouldn’t it be grand if we all just had a magic wand, a utility belt, a snap of the fingers and things were just…better?  Life isn’t the fairy tale that I had Great Expectations for when I was young.

So what do I do then?  How do I put myself back together for the greater good  How do I do this?  Well, first thing I’ve learned is that I have to do it on my own in my own time.  I ask for advice and support occaisionally but I am well aware that I do this on my own.  Next, with a great emphasis, I need to do it on my own time.  My OWN time.  I can’t have people judging me for how long it takes me to be okay with a relationship, or getting serious with someone.  In my favourite movie St. Elmo’s Fire Lesley doesn’t want to get married to her long time boyfriend Alec because she wants to make something for herself first.  They move in together, but they have just graduated from college and It’s not her time yet, and he gets impatient.  I can’t have that, from anyone in my life, or I just get too…bothered.  I want to work it out for me, for me and what I  want.

So this is an open apology to those who are affected by my decisions (whoever lets it bother them, the things that I need) that I am so sorry that I have hurt you because of the things that I need in my life.  I make these decisions in an informed manner but as my last few posts here have spoken out about I don’t always know if I am right.  I can’t take back those decisions, but they are my own.  I am ready to do this my way, I just need the support is all.

Thanks,

x

215

Day two Hundred and Fifteen:  Nesting Continued Again…

To finish this entire rant up:  Life isn’t easy.  I don’t know all of the answers, and I make mistakes.  Tons of mistakes actually, look at my typing alone, it’s a miracle I’ve made it to fourth year with these crappy spelling and typing mistakes.  I don’t know how I have friends with the memory I have.  I don’t know how my family still stands me with where I forget my shoes around the house and my messy room, but somewhow they all do.  I sometimes wish that I felt differently about certain people, but I have to trust myself that I am doing the right thing for me.  That’s all life is, really, trying to do the right thing for you and affecting other people’s lives in the process.  Try to be positive and love others, but don’t sacrifice everything for other people’s opinions or just them.  Be you, and things will come around.

x

214

Day Two Hundred and Fourteen:  Nesting, Continued…

It all seems to make sense when people say that regrets are obsolete. Who actually cares if you regret anything?  Who cares!  It’s done!  The past is the past, and you made those choices, and they are made you can’t go back and change them!  Stop dwelling on everything that you really cannot change, and learn to deal with them!  It is incredibly hard to sit down and face yourself.  Trust me, I know, and I have made some pretty shitty decisions in my life, but I stand behind them.  Sometimes not as confidently, but I still stand behind those decisions because I am mee.  This is me guys, in my absolute most honest hour, saying that I have done things wrong and messed up and lied and didn’t do my best and took people for granted and manipulated and been too selfish and greedy and needy, and I have put people down for my own benefit and have screwed people over and have lied again, and I am still standing.  I’m a little defeated, from those darned teenage years of “Wasting away” as we all assume we will be when we are sixteen and in love unrequitedly and need validation for our lives, but I am 21 now, and I validate my own god damned life, thankyouverymuch.

That’s the thing we learn for our teenage years.  We learn that in order to live a life that we can call our own we must validate it for ourselves.  I remember the boyfriend I ahd when I was 17 and we were in love and going to get married and I thought I had to do what he told me to because in order for me to have someone in my life you need to compromise and let them in.  I thought that was true and maybe it is to an extent, but never let someone else tell you what to do or how to live your life.  Ask for advice, smile, give hugs and thank people nicely, but you do not have to do what anyone else tells you.  You make those decisions in your life, and I realised that after we broke up.  That everything he told me to do I got mad at him for because he told me to do them and they weren’t in my best interest.  But you know what?  I could’ve just said NO.  And I didn’t.  I don’t regret it, but now I know whent o stand my own ground.

How else are we going to learn how to be people?  We will never, ever be perfect, but we can constantly learn and evaluate life so that we van live it.  Live it.  It doesn’t have to be out loud, it doesn’t have to be on Youtube or with tons of people around you or have huge massive goals to reach for, but don’t sulk around and wish you were living.  You are, if you’re reading this you are living, right now, and time’s just ticking away.  Maybe a part of you living your life is reading this and that is friggen great I’m glad you find that this blog has merit for you because it has merit for me and I will forever love and cherish the words I put here, but you don’t have to.  You evaluate your own wants and needs and if staying in bed all day and not being productive is what works for you JUST DO IT.  I the it when people think that their life has these huge expectations, didn’t you learn in highschool that what your guidance councellor wants isn’t necessarily what you need?  Or want?  Jeez.

I think I’m going to make another post about this, this is just great for me, kay, cool.

X

213

Day Two Hundred and Thirteen:  Nesting

I cannot keep track of how many blogs I am behind on, and the math is overwhelming for this morning so I plan on just writing a few and then doing all of the calculations later.  That seems to be the way I live my life right now:  take on a lot and then evaluate how it affects my life.  I have a hard time determining what might be good for me before I take part in it.  Maybe this is something I should be working on this year.

At the beginning of this year I said my word for 2013 was “Burturing” and I think I have gone beyond what I thought that word meant.  Nurturing myself, yes, is one thing, nurturing my relationships with the people that matter in my life, sure, okay, nurturing other things?    What about balance?  What about thought control and pleasure in my work?  What about the way I feel about everything in general?  I feel as though I have forgotten maybe not who I am, but who I was.  Something about growing up is that learning from the past is inevitable, or it is in my opinion, and letting go of things is one thing but taking the lesson from those things is another.

New experiences dictate what goes on in my life at the moment, and I have been on a few coaster rides this summer already with new things to experience, and yes they have been nice, but what about those good old days where I could sit in my pajama’s and not feel as though I was wasting an entire day watching say Sex and the City or Harry Potter?  I have to get up, make a healthy breakfast and go for a walk before noon to even feel like I’ve done anything.  What is it about growing up that makes you…well, nuts?

We always joke about the teenage years as the most unstable, horomonal, energized years of our lives where everything was so heightened and out of this world, everything was life or death every decision you made hung in the balance of the rest of you life.  Every person you “dated” was going to marry you, and your friends were your besties until the day you died.  Well, most of the boys I “dated” in highschool have long since past my attention span, and I talk to a total of four people from my highschool group of friends.  But the thing is, the insanity, the confusion and mindswept overwhelming sense of not really knowing anything has continued, lingered, overstayed its welcome in my now twenty-something years.  The truth is, I am nearing my 22^nd birthday (well, five months is nearing, right?) and I feel as though I haven’t grown.

Maybe that’s too sharp of a statement, because even just part of me has grown and that is an improvement, and I will never say I was not proud of the girl I was in highschool because by golly I worked my ass off and was half blind for all of it let alone the last year of absolute darkness.  But I made so many mistakes that sometimes I think that I don’t exactly regre the girl I was, but rather I am happy it happened then when everyone else was going through a similar adjustment period to the horomones and the emotions and the life changing events…  Or maybe those events were just me, sometimes the whole blind thing escapes me.

I guess I have grown, and that is a fabulous thing, and I am fabulous now as I have been my whole life, but one thing that I kind of get confused at is I always say “When I grow up I want to be…” da-ta-da-ta-da, but in reality, I am constantly growing up.  Right now is twenty years after I first said that sentence, and in my opinion that is enough growing up to have achieved a handful of the goals that I wanted.  Now, when I was little I wanted to be a marine biologist who lived on the coast, but I have been whale watching, and I have been in many oceans, and it feels good to look back and say “Yep that was me, those were my thoughts, and this is me now, and I am me now because of the me then, and that’s something that I may have to deal with for the rest of my life, but atleast it happened.  Atleast the old me is now just me.”

I think I’m going to continue this conversation in the next post, but it just all is seeming to make sense now.

212

Day Two Hundred and Twelve:  Just, Pringles.

Open Letters to Anonymous Series #1

Dear ______,

I’m reading this book and the main character is just like you.  Sometimes I wonder if you’re you before me, or if you wish you were back in your own room in your own thoughts.  It’s not the way you are around me that gets me it’s the way you aren’t.  It’s the things that you haven’t said or avoid, and in those silences more things are loud and clear.  I say this so often, but I miss us.  It’s beyond us now though, not just the big things but those little things, and…sometimes I think we both just get too convoluted with life that we just…lose, us.

This may sound vague, or you might know who you are, but in any event I wish you’d open up to me more, but I know it’s not you all the time and so I don’t push it.  I care about you inside and out, and if there’s anything I could say to you is that if our friendship were a movie we’d be on Netflix, indeed.

xo