My quest to figure out what it is I want to do with my life: post-university degree. And, then, the process of getting me there...
Monday, 10 October 2011
Musing
My life is a joke...I eagerly laugh at not just my own mistakes, but what I consider my "bad luck."
But is it ever really "bad" luck?
As I enter my fourth year of residency here in Edmonton, it becomes more obvious that I may be here for much longer than the originally anticipated six months. The wanderlust that hit me early on in life fails to escape my life. This time last year, I realized that it had invaded my work life - either starting a new job or a new position/transfer approximately every six months. Now that I've managed to surpass that threshold in my previous job, I eagerly look forward to remaining at my current position for much longer than that. Luckily, I have the opportunity in this position to create the world I want.
And, so, with career figured out (for the time being), I look to the rest of my life. This summer, it became apparent that close friendships of mine are intense for only about six months before fizzling into mere acquaintances that get picked up exactly when they need to be. Not that I forget about these people, or that after six months knowing them no longer means as much as when we first met...but, somehow, we both move on with our lives. It never hurts that after being friends with me for about two-three months, the other person normally meets a wonderful person who becomes the love of their life. Not to put any pressure on those friends who met their current boy/girlfriend shortly after becoming my dear friend, but none of the relationships I have "mused" into existence have fallen apart as much as our friendships have... This phenomena deserves more unpacking and I wish to do that at a later date. Perhaps even with a psychologist...
Last winter, I realized my gift as a "muse." Three weeks into any romantic relationship, I remain excited about the future of everything; whereas the other person has been provided with an opportunity that improves their life greatly, and leaves me deserted and alone. I am, as I joke, a "lucky love." Of course, as I joked more about it, the time required for luck to appear became much shorter. One example was even three days. And, one took over three months of torment, friendship, and figuring everything else out...
The joke is funny at first. "What a great pick-up line!" I've been told. The idea is novel. It's been in movies, mentioned on sitcoms, and discussed at length with my good friends. We all like to play the victim of bad fate...at least for a little while. At what point, though, did it make me bitter and jaded?
This phenomena has been un-packed at length already in this blog. I wish to no longer dwell on it. And, then, I put on an old record, remember my first opportunity to be some one else's muse...
Monday, 3 October 2011
On Loss
He wasn't himself, though. He was this great big block of something else. But we all knew it was him. I felt him in that cinder block. Suddenly, I felt a gust of wind pull me towards the rock. I could feel my family nearby - on the periphery, supporting everything I was experiencing. My father, the solid structure in everything was watching me closely as I slowly pieced together what the wind symbolized. Suddenly, an arrow of grief shot through my heart as I thought about death. My thoughts turned to my mother. No....I thought...it can't be...
I woke up with a blanket of peace covering my body. Today was IT - the day I had been thinking about and planning for the last two months. Every musician was booked; volunteers would arrive on time; work would flow as it should immediately following the volunteer hours; my speeches were ready; I'd say perhaps not the perfect thing, but all of the right things. I was loved. I was in the right place. I was going to take the world by storm...
I had a text message. I shared my positive feelings of love in my response. It was reciprocated with sadness...
In those few words, I knew.
I called my parents. There was no answer. I texted my mom, seeing if she could chat. The text came in to let me know. My mom called to let me know the details.
After three years of fighting (the ugliest word to ever be used in our culture), my aunt had passed on.
Many people expected me not to carry on with the day's events. And perhaps I shouldn't have. I was definitely unable to do the job I wanted to. My energy levels were extremely low, and my mind continued to race in a foggy cloud as people arrived needing direction. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to curl into a ball and be left alone.
Instead, I hid when I could, thanked everyone who was there to help us out, told my friends why I wasn't my smiling self, received hugs from the family of support I had created in my life, and began to fear that I wasn't yet strong enough to support the family I was blessed to have been born into...
Of the five family deaths I have been witness to, this is the third that is a result of a long drawn-out battle. Only one of those five deaths happened in less than a day of a battle to survive. I don't know that any of the options are any better or any worse than the other. After a long battle, though, I know that my aunt did everything she knew how to in order to survive...and then she decided to enjoy what life she had left.
After a battle to survive, death is a relief. The family has been caring for her, worrying about her health, cherishing each moment, and keeping one another constantly updated about her health. Everybody has been dealing with the realizations of her health in their own way. And that is all that can ever be expected, and respected.
My reaction has been to throw myself headlong into not finding a cure to that (ugliest word to ever be used in our culture), but a way of preventing this pain to happen to anybody...
Last October, I first watched Food Matters. My reaction to it was amazing. "Let food by thy medicine..." And my explanation of its message does not do it justice. Instead, I have learned to have other people watch the film. This week, you can do just that for free on their website: www.foodmatters.tv . David Wolf's presence alone inspired me to carry on with increasing my knowledge about how food can be our medicine, rather than the fuel for our disease. Two days after watching that movie, I heard that my aunt's cancer had move into her brain.
I remember that moment exactly. I was picking up my last...never mind, it's over. That world of understanding no longer exists for me. And rage engulfs my body when I think of the millions of people - especially any more of my loved ones - still existing in that world of understanding. Where man-made chemicals cure you; the natural world can be controlled; and if there's something wrong, it has to be righted. I wish I could say that life outside that world is better...but it's all still filled with suffering...
As I write this, I am going through the stage of realization that she is actually gone. As I prepare to see my family (a time I love and have anxiety for at the same time), I keep coming to terms with the fact that my aunt will not be there. Her smiling face will not greet me at her door. Her perfume will not engulf me when she gives me the warmest hug I've ever had somebody give to me. I won't hear her voice quietly commenting on somebody else's story, or sharing it's own (she had one of the quieter voices in her family, and everybody stopped to listen when she began to speak, so that we all heard her fine, calm words). Although I've been expecting this day for far too long, it is finally here...and she is not...and that is a sad realization to come to.
Sunday, 2 October 2011
insomnia
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Sleeping Beauty (Uncensored)
As another year closes in on me, I find myself nowhere closer to solving the Crisis, but in a much better position to continue life as if it always will be the Crisis. As such, I am working on an entry to commemorate this section of my journey thus far. It is a collection, of sorts, of lessons learned this year.
Hopefully that post will actually be created! I find myself entirely scattered right now, and unable to believe that my birthday is but three days away. At this moment, though, I am inspired to write through a theme that stems from a fundamental lesson I learned about myself this year, specifically as I relate to matters of the heart, the power of our believes to create our reality and my view of life as fate-driven.
There are many ways of looking for the meaning of the world. Some look to religion, some look to science, or philosophy. Myself, I look at a myriad of different schools, chose what I like from each (discard the rest) and have created my own meaning for my world. (We all have but one perspective, and each is unique to ourselves.) A major school within my meaning for my world is Astrology. There was a time in my early adult life where I read my horoscope first thing in the morning, took what I found to be true from its fairly generic guidance and enjoyed the rest of my day. After a few weeks of this, I discovered that more and more of my horoscopes were increasing in their accuracy…
This year, I have truly come to understand the concept of our ability to create our own reality. Basically, what this means - at the level I implying right now - is that my life began to resemble more and more of the horoscopes because I began to believe that the horoscopes were accurate. I woke up every morning, searching for what the day would bring, read a short blip that could have been applied to anybody's life but that I applied to my own because of the time of year when I was born, and then went through the rest of my day, aware of any situations that would correspond to that blip. Any time I came across a coincidence, my faith in the horoscope grew. I then became more aware of coincidences. I also put myself into more situations that the blips would discuss. My reality is but an interpretation of the life happening in front of me.
About two years ago, my mom recommended that I read The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. This year, I have truly come to comprehend its thesis. Of course, you can find similar arguments in other books that began this year in my journey. Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life and The Secret are two top ones. Essentially, if you believe strongly enough in something, it is real for you. Hypochondriacs are sick because they focus on a disease that is not there. The argument has several steps between that statement and this, but essentially, your subconscious mind is in control of everything. You are able to communicate to your subconscious mind about a condition within your body (or even your life) and that condition then exists. I do suggest that - if you are lost along this logic – you read The Power of Your Subconscious Mind and then, with a more open mind The Secret. For me, approaching this concept from a drugstore philosophy (The Secret) was not as effective as the powerful arguments laid out in The Power of Your Subconscious Mind.
Now that I comprehend this idea, what was happening to me years ago when I read horoscopes does not seem as coincidental. I create my own reality. With that understanding of the world, it is then not a surprise for me to realize that the astrology I read about myself at that time continues to manifest itself in the life of a twenty-something single girl.
"While Virgo guy may cling to what vestiges of virginity he might possess, Virgo girl can't seem to give it away. Most men have no inkling that she is actually the Zodiac's most eager beaver. She thus embodies the flip side of virginity: its inherent frustration. She must wait, playing her childish games, until such time as a tall, dark stranger reaches out and grabs, plummeting her into delightful depths of exploring aching, untapped desires. Unaware that true love or lust is best when it finds her, Virgo meanwhile looks for it in all the wrong places. Another seeming contradiction of Virgo, vis-a-vis its Virgin symbol, is the sign's association with midlife, ages 35-42, when a woman is, at once nearing her prime and the end of her fertile years."
A Frustrated Virgin at the time of first reading this, I had a much stronger and angrier association with it. Would I be stuck in this sexual purgatory of virginity until 35? The mockery of individuals similar to Steve Carell's character in The Forty-Year-Old Virgin made my anguish that much stronger. In fifteen to twenty years, that would be me! Am I some loser that is unable to interpret social cues and find the utmost joy in life – a relationship, love, and most importantly sex? To this day, I cannot stand any degree of mockery towards socially awkward people or virgins. It is a frustrating position, especially in our sex-obsessed society.
My interpretation of the above corresponds well with:
"Talk about loaded: Virgo is not only a whole lotta woman physically, she also places tremendous expectations on what another female might simply consider a crush. To most men, she is thus doubly intimidating - especially to the carefree "boys" she seeks to bed, to whom the prospect of a relationship with her is akin to staring into a gaping abyss. First, some of those guys she goes for doubt their ability to sexually satisfy such a zaftig creature. Secondly, because relations seem to be so sacred to her, "entering" a Virgo is like barging into a temple where most men feel unworthy to tread. Of course, being so different, she'd never suspect herself of making others feel insignificant - she'd just read it as rejection and internalize her pain, adding to those churning, burning, yearning feelings deep inside. It mightn't be until years later that Virgo finally appreciates the value of this natural weeding-out process: with lesser men - boys, really - kept at bay, it will be only the most self-assured "grown-up" male who won't be intimidated by this unspeakable force, instead, desiring her for it. Despite Virgo's designation as the Zodiac's empty vessel, she is nonetheless fairly incapable of being objectified by men - she is clearly so much more than a mere trinket. Still, it is particularly difficult for most men to resolve Virgo's double-barrelled aura of saintly sister and sexy mama."
Slowly, over the years, I became less frustrated about the entire situation. Using the above passage, I convinced myself that this patience would be worth it. Perhaps, like Sleeping Beauty, I would remain asleep for years until my prince finally arrived to wake me up to the beauty of being in love. Until then, I told myself, being single was not so bad. One night, alone in my room in England, I was able to convince myself that, although only 22, I had had a loving and fulfilled life. If this was all that there was to it, I would be ok as a spinster for the rest of my life.
Then, as every love story goes, I met somebody. I fell quite quickly infatuated with him, and he enjoyed my mind, my attention, and my eagerness to accommodate him. Perhaps he fell into infatuation with me as well. Sadly, his infatuation included other women as well and this was not what I could handle at the time. In an attempt to prove my point that this could not work, I ended up injuring myself more than him. Although I pretended that everything was okay, wiped the dirt from skirt, and held my head high as I left that small room, proclaiming once again that the life of a spinster would not be as disastrous as I would have previously thought.
Eventually, I healed enough from my injuries to start dating again. This "time away" from further schooling was in fact supposed to be about learning life lessons, not scholarly ones. Dating skills were part of the life lessons. As such, I treated each date as a new lesson learned and gained a wealth of information within the first few months. This portion of my rest for a hundred years (or at least the decade until my sign's turn to shine) would be the playing time. I could go on dates, meet interesting people, and actively observe how people go through these rituals. I was a social scientist, wasn't I?
I soon grew bored and starting looking towards school…
Then, as every love story goes, I met somebody. He was passionate, and self-made, thought outside of the box, and with one mere question opened up the floodgate to my dreams so that I could begin this last AMAZING year of my journey. For that, I am eternally grateful. He told me to do none of the things I began to do, but merely inspired me to wake up to the life I had wanted to live for the last ten years of my life. In a sense, he could be called my prince. Except that he was not as chivalrous a gentleman that I needed him to be.
And so I moved on…eventually. I cut my ties to the emotions he had stirred within me and reaped an immense freedom in sharing that with others. In a sense, he cured me of many of the ailments my initial slumber had only worsened. On the other hand, he brought to the surface the fact that I do possess a "natural weeding-out process." And so, I sit, a Sleeping Beauty hidden in the brambles, awaiting the true knight who will come and rescue me from this life so mundane and love-less.
Last weekend, I expressed my utter joy in the prospect of turning older. I believe that I am one of the few, if not the only woman in her twenties that is excited about her thirties. Of course, this doesn't mean that I won't enjoy my youth, pretend to already be older, or even act my real age half of the time. While many of my peers look at 30 as a time for their lives to have already been settled down, careers started and families soon to be had, I don't have many goals that must be completed before I turn the big 3-0. Especially none so dependent on other people, or lucky chances to occur. I look at my 20's as a time to continue to figure out life, gain some experience and meet some great people.
"What a great way to age!" most people must think. But that's not really it. I have successfully convinced myself that nothing will actually happen until I have hit "mid-life" (according to my horoscope, but not according to my plans to outlive 100). Until then, I am merely sleeping…and getting better looking every year!
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Hello, my name is Crazy Girl
"You see, she's not usually like this. It's just, that, well, she kinda sorta likes you. A lot. And, although she knows this is the wrong behaviour to do, she's scared of these emotions boiling under the surface. Last time she had them, bad things happened. People said a lot of things they didn't mean just a few weeks later. Words were thrown around too early; words meant a lot to her back then. Now she's kinda scared of those words. And the emotions that come before those words.
"It's alright. She'll recover. Trust me, I've seen her go through MUCH worse. You think you're getting it bad? You should have seen the first guy! I'd be surprised if he ever even talked to another blonde after I was done with him. I know he didn't say the same words 'cause I ripped out his tongue. It just wasn't yet time for that special breed of $@#hole.
"Don't worry. I've become milder with age, too. I don't think you're all as stupid as you first let on to be. And some of you actually seem to get hurt when I get the daggers out!?! Who knew you had emotions? I'll try to be gentle with you. You're a nice one. An improvement on the last one... I'm obviously doing my job of protecting this little darling from too many douche bags before one of you morons actually wises up enough to convince her it's okay to be herself. She's ...well, you'll soon learn how special she is and then I'll disappear for a few weeks. I wish I didn't have to protect her like this. But if you break her heart like the last one, my job just gets easier!
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Lesson: Patience
Those of us currently in our 20s have more than likely seen Friends enough through syndication to feel we know their stories inside and out. (Like my friend today insisted.) When you watch it from Season One to Season Ten, however, there are many lessons to learn from the characters as they matured through such an important part of everyone's life: their twenties.
Ah, the twenties! The seeedbed of the Quarter Life Crisis. (I find it odd that after three odd years of keeping this blog, I've never wiki'd the term. It's quite interesting and applicable: read more here.) After discovering those first few layers of the onion through adolescence, it is now time for the individual to meet the "Real World." In doing so, more layers of that onion are revealed, .... and crisis ensues.
Friends begins with the six main characters all having established lives, faced with their own struggle to overcome. There is the recently divorced palaeontologist, the romantically-challenged sexually-liberated sous chef, the new age aura-cleansing massage therapist (who doesn't really struggle until further in the series), the data processing wizzard who wishes he had a calling (but doesn't find it until nearly the last season), the actor (struggling is inevitably implied) and the girl who arrives, soaked from the rain, in a wedding dress. This girl - Rachel Green - is the most screwed up, but becomes the most sophisticated, put-together character by the end of it all. She is often the example I use in my head to know that things will get better. Life will start to go in my favour. This crisis, too, shall pass.
The series begins with the characters all approximately my age and completely lost. It concludes, ten years later, with their lives more figured out, many tears shed along the way, but many many more laughs. This, I believe is not only why I love this show, but why it did so well. Although I am often laughed at for referring to my "Quarter Life Crisis," it does too exist. It is easy to dismiss it as "your twenties" but the labelling of a crisis is always much more dramatic (and I do love the Drama of it all).
When I hit my low points, I put season one into the DVD player, and begin watching. Occasionally I'll skip several episodes and go directly to The One with The Magic Beans (not the real title). Rachel has only just begun to figure out how to serve coffee (but failing miserably at it, still) when her friends from her last life appear. The "catching up" visit is cut short when they ask her: "so, when are you gonna give this up and come on home?" Almost immediately, she realizes how much she gave up to pursue her true calling and it terrifies her. She comes home to Monica and Phoebe having a margarita-infused slumber party, grabs the recently blended alcoholic beverage still in the blender, and begins to vent about her bad luck. Within mere minutes, all three are depressed, feel completely lost in their life journey, and have no idea where they will end up. THIS is a Quarter Life Crisis moment.
The beauty of television shows is that everything gets wrapped up within a 22-minute time-slot. Of course, their hopes are not restored. Phoebe's suggestion that Rachel is like Jack, who traded his cow (the life he loved) for some magic beans) fails to reassure all three young women with the despair that Rachel's crisis has created. But, the seed (pardon the pun) had been planted. They bond, as women do on tv, by watching (from their infamous balcony) a sexy politician take home a date. Stories of failed relationships, the possibility of dating their male friends, and regular chit-chat improve all of their moods and they are able to move pass this crisis test. The next day, on the phone with the credit card company, Rachel has found her confidence once again and tells the company, watching her new friends play Twister and enjoy life, that everything is just fine, she's found her Magic Beans...
And that is not far from reality. We cannot solve our problems by dwelling on them. Venting about them is fine. We allow others to know our grief, but then we must move on, trusting that everything will work out in the end.
What is far from reality is the time in which everything gets resolved. For weeks, I have been waiting for my current dilemma to resolve itself. I have meditated. I have brainstormed solutions. I have sought advice from my friends. But nothing has truly seemed to go in my favour until this week. Things are starting to come together. The universe shines in my favour once again. And I am almost ready to tell the credit card company that "everything is okay. I've found my Magic Beans." Not yet, though. There are still many things left to worry about. Many other things to put into place. Much work is left to do. And trust me that the episode in which this all gets resolved has lasted much longer than 22 minutes!
Isn't that beautiful, though?
I remember when I used to watch television shows on a television network rather than on DVDs. The show began, I was entertained for a half hour (with breaks), and then it was over for another week. With DVDs, every evening I can sit down and watch a full year's worth of those short entertainments. Having to wait to find out what happens is no longer a problem. But, I have missed out on a lot of those characters development. To condense a week into 22 minutes is quite difficult.
Life shouldn't be condensed that way. Those afternoons we spend sitting in the sunshine would have been editted out of any sitcom. That run of customers we chatted with about the run we were doing in a few months time would have been shortened into a four sentence quip about curious minds while sharing my day in the coffee shop with my friends. Those are precious moments, often eliminated from fiction for the purpose of flow. And, I should be okay with that...
And one day, I will be. One day, I'll be patient, look back and know that I got out of that last crisis, I'm sure I can get out of this crisis, too....
Monday, 9 May 2011
A Little Bit of...Writer's Encouragement from the Past
I have a shady memory. Discussing a recent weekend, a friend asked if I had truly been drunk enough to blackout. "No, I never blackout," I told her. "But I have a bad memory as it is...and sometimes I chose not to remember a lot of what has happened, whether or sober or not." I feel this applies to my childhood quite profoundly. Thus the necessity for continuing to keep so much more of the artwork from that time of my life. The rest of the memories - the people, the places, the situations, embarassing moments - can be forgotten, reminisced over with the friends those people have become in my life, again, revisitted, and re-friended based on who they are now rather than who they were back then.
I do have a fairly functional memory for songs, though, and this is one that always makes me tap my foot. In grade nine, I wrote a report drugs and Hollywood. Like many blossoming teenagers in small towns with nothing else to do, I was obsessed with learning as much as I could about show biz. As I became more involved with doing too many other things with my life, this obsession faded. This song marks the hallmark of my obsession with Hollywood. It was re-worded from Lou Bega's hit at the time: Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit of...). Whenever I hear the song today, I am taken back to the Health classroom (our junior high theatre), half of the girls in my grade nine year (as we had to be separated for Health/Gym class at that age) and the accolades I received for standing in front of them all, just singing as best as I terribly could. I was like Weird Al Yankovic, but way way cooler ;-) ... and he was pretty cool back then!
Several months ago - perhaps even years - I tried to find the version of the song that I had written. It was only tonight, looking through an old old box that I finally found it! So, I thought I would share it...
I really hope you remember how this song goes. If not, open this link in a separate window and read the lyrics to the rhythm...
Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit of...)
One, two, three, four, five
Every one in show biz, says "Let's get high!"
Get the time, on probation, it's all right
Tool man says he got some if you want it
But really don't wanna
Big bust like he did in seventy eight
He must stay clean 'cause cops are keen
Just like Dreyfuss, Downey, Demi and Rio
And as I continue, you know they're getting stronger
So what do they do, I really beg you, my Lord
To them smokin' is part of a role
Any deal does, it's all good, let them dunk it
If they want it with a crumpet...
A little bit of cocaine in their life
A litte bit of heroine by their side
A litte bit of alcohol is all they need
A litte bit of drugs is what I see
A litte bit of smokin' in the sun
A litte bit of parties all night long
A litte bit of death, here I am
A litte bit of drugs makes you their man
Rain Pryor was a druggie and now helps teens
Demi in the eighties wasn't keen
Recently the same is Charlie Sheen
Ben Afleck's dad and Rachel Leigh Cook
Get the message across without being shook
Clap your hands once and clap your hands twice
'Cause it looks like some peeps are doin' it right
A little bit of River lost his life
A little bit of Belushi on the other side
A litte bit of Bowie got all he'd need
A litte bit of Feldman in the nineties
A litte bit of Freddie's dad is gone
A litte bit of Presley and his songs
A litte bit of Barrymore and her dad
A litte bit of help keeps it a fad.
Some do all to keep away from drugs - P.U.!
They can't run and they can't hide
Most celebs just wanna touch the sky!
A little bit of Elvis in my life
A little bit of Corey by my side
A litte bit of Phoenix is all I need
A litte bit of Charlie is what I see
A litte bit of Rob Lowe in the sun
A litte bit of Farley all night long
A litte bit of David Bowie, here I am
A litte bit of drugs give lessons to them all.