Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Pour some sugar on me!

Today seems to be the slowest moving day ever in life. I need to do something challenging, the combination of boredom at home and boredom at work is going to drive me crazy!

I've been thinking about trying an online course in something random, or learning a language (maybe I should try mastering French first?). Or perhaps I should just suck it up and look for a new effing job, something that stimulates my brain and actually uses some of the skills I have to offer? Hmm, maybe it's time.

After all, the 12 hours of sitting isn't about to help me lose any more weight. And 11 AM to 11 PM is a pretty socially debilitating shift. I work best when I have morning shifts, and it's a lot easier to accomplish random unexpected tasks when you get off while the sun's still up. But 4 days off every week is not something you find often... Decisions, decisions.

I don't find that I utilize my time off very well. Mostly I have no idea what to do with myself. I do basic things like housework and grocery shopping and then waste colossal amounts of time doing literally nothing.
I'm aware that having a bus pass will alleviate this concern to some degree, not having to ration my bus tickets always helps. I also need to associate myself with people who do activity-type things on a regular basis so I can find something I'm interested in doing. I've been a homebody and a full-time mom for so long, I don't have the first idea about what's fun to me anymore!

Yesterday Marc brought over his electric guitar and ever so graciously offered to leave it with me so I can fiddle with it, it'll be nice to have something that's easy to play so I can start finding my passion for music again. I find music to be extremely therapeutic, and writing music is definitely easier when it's less obvious that my hands are crippled. So look forward to potential new shit from your favorite closet musician.

On that note, I realize now that I've thought about it that less than 10 people have heard my original music. And I haven't written anything new in over 5 years. I think perhaps I should find some people who play other instruments and collaborate, maybe some joined effort will lubricate the process. I'm very aware that my primary skill is vocals, and maybe if I had some extra help with the instrumental portion, I could focus on writing really good lyrics instead of being limited by what I can play. There's a thought.

4 hours left til freedom. Here's hoping they are of the rapid, fast-paced variety. *snort*


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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Another day of solitaire

I spent a little time on okc today. I remembered meeting some of my good friends there, when I first got to Calgary, and reopened my account a few months ago in hopes of another successful venture. Alas, besides my one worthwhile find, the rest of the population seems fixated on either my having a child and somehow being inferior or trying to convince me that what I really need is to be boned 6 ways from Sunday. The latter part is probably more accurate than the former, but I'd like to know who actually goes in on this shit to give these people the idea that this is an acceptable opening topic.

In all honesty, the profile should probably come down. I have the emotional availability of a fucking teaspoon right now. If the best suitor possible was to come knocking I'd have no idea and minimal interest. My awareness tank is running on empty and my skepticism is at an all time high.

It makes me chuckle, thinking about how dating worked for me in the past, how easily I slipped from one torrid little affair into another almost seamlessly. Some of it was meaningful and most of it was frivolous and short-lived. My expectations of finding someone continue to dwindle, and will likely fade completely upon the purchase of a reliable vibrating tube and some batteries. A girl can always trust a bit of plastic to keep up.

The shop manager from work and I had a lengthy and entertaining conversation on the topic of friends with benefits on Friday, a choice I consider still doomed to fail as it necessitates there being more than one participant and thusly it is inevitable that miscommunications should be had. Plastic, having no feelings and the inability to manipulate mine, makes the ideal sex partner at this stage of the game.

Such a romantic, I am.
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Sunday, July 25, 2010

I can't name the look in your eyes when they meet mine anymore. They never linger, I can never see enough to really feel like I understand.

When the night grows long, and as my life goes on I can only wonder how things changed so fast, so completely.

As my breath runs short from trying to catch up, I find I'm always two steps behind you, and always hoping you'll slow down.

You're so far away already.

What's gone is gone, and you run from it like it will swallow you whole if you pause to reconcile it, to think on it with a smile when all I have to take from it is the peaceful happiness we shared.

Learning to be with you without the way you looked at me and the touch of your fingertips on my face, it gets easier every day. The hardest part is knowing you can't look at me at all, and only you know what it is you see that makes you avert your eyes, what you see that is so different from what you saw before.

I never lock my window on the off chance things will change, despite knowing things have changed already and they'll never be the same. I wonder what is yet to come and where we'll end up, and if someday we can laugh and talk about it, or if you'll never see it the same way I do, if you don't remember how sweet it was when things were easy.

I can't help feeling close to you, and if I could save you the discomfort of knowing you don't feel the same, I would. But faking it is even more obvious than letting it show, I've accepted this change as completely as I can thus far and it still feels like you're unsure. I don't pretend to know what you're unsure about. I wish I could.

I do not have the comfort of knowing I made this choice for us. And despite everything, I don't have the capacity to walk away. I can't decide who I am to you, only who you are to me. You are my friend, now, but forgetting where we started isn't as easy for me. It still feels unfinished, and until our eyes can meet without you turning away, I can't lock that window. I can't help but wonder what is hiding, or what you're hiding from. And most of all, I can't picture turning you away if you wanted in again.

Feelings change. History does not. My feelings have changed, they've adapted, and still the things that transpired during that short time hold some meaning to me. I can't imagine how it could be different for you, and I hope that it isn't. I hope you still feel good when we're together. I hope the things we said still ring true to you. That is all I hope for, that's all the closure I anticipate.

I know things aren't easy anymore. Do you know that? That I don't feel that innocent sweetness between us anymore, but that having had it means it is part of us?

I'm sad if that is why you can't look into my eyes. If the reason you can't relax into being close to me is because of what we let go. It was our first chapter, it doesn't have to be any more than that. But it's written and it's a part of our story, a piece of this evolving saga and I don't know how to ignore it even if it's easier than this.

I want to be there when things are better for you again. I want to see you get back up and make the life you want. I believe you can do that, and I hope you do too. Every other variable is irrelevant, they are not under my control and I do not want them to be my responsibility. But I will be here for you as long as you want me to be, and if you need to lean on me, I hope you will without concern, because that is who I want to be for you, that is what I can do to be at peace with the turn of events that have brought us here.

We have much to learn about one another, and I am always open to another lesson.
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Friday, July 23, 2010

Isn't it funny

I'm having a decent day today, and I feel like things could be improving (at least my perspective on things, anyway) and so I find myself with little to say. Despite being woken up several hours earlier than usual to be called in to an early shift at work, and being sick, today seems to be a day of relief from feeling angsty and woeful. I'm gonna embrace it, and shut my trap!

Love!
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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Our old friend fear and you and me

If we are to believe the teachings of the fictional Jim Cunningham, the basis upon which all actions, thoughts and behaviors can be tied to one of two core emotions- fear and love. Donnie protests this simplification of the spectrum of human emotion, when it is used as a benchmark to morality and ethics, but consider some of the pivotal choices that have altered you throughout your life and ultimately there is truth to be found here.

Decisions. The weighing of pros and cons, loss and gain, future and past. When it comes time to commit yourself to a choice, do you not consider your fears, do they prevent you from taking a risk? Are you not more likely to make a step in the wrong direction while blinded by love? And, more specifically, when you know you've made a bad choice for love in the past, does your fear of vulnerability not inhibit you from achieving clarity of mind when faced with a new choice?

My specialty seems to be making the best of my bad choices. I seem hell-bent on making the same mistakes over and over again, even though the variables may be totally different, the general concept is the same. My fears always seem to sneak up on me after it's too late, after the decision is made and I've got no choice but to sink or swim. Sinking seems so easy, I know how easy it is.

Knowing I can offer so much is a detriment. It means I give freely, in hopes that someone will turn up who wants to give as much as I do. A kindred spirit who can see the clean honesty of what I'm giving and reciprocate. I've been lucky to find my English Muffin, and to have had her all to myself for so long, but I left her behind to find myself and now I'm responsible for there being no hand to hold, nothing under my feet but the depths, and I have to find my own strength and my own reasons to keep going.

At this stage, everything is on autopilot. I wake up and do what is expected, and find little pleasure in the days and little comfort in the night. I write and write, hoping that untangling all of these thoughts and arranging them will reveal some sort of glowing epiphany, like hunting for clues in a one-woman scavenger hunt. The best intentions of those on the other side of the wall fall on my shoulders like sacks, their weight pulls me down further. The recognition that I should be comforted by these kindnesses makes me feel indebted, and like I'm somehow falling short. I'm frustrated by my inability to absorb this comfort. I understand that it's genuine, I believe that it comes from care and concern, but I insist on carrying the load myself for reasons I can't verbalize.

I'm not ready to move forward, I need to give this hurt time to heal. I need to feel it and learn everything I can from where my decisions have brought me. This is not regret, or shame. I can still justify every choice I've made to myself. But if my understanding of consequence was where it needed to be, I wouldn't be perpetuating this cycle.

So here's to my abundance of love- may the well never run empty, may I continue to have more love to give than the ones I care for can consume. May I learn to guard my heart closer, and mete out my trust so that love remains pure and clean.

And to my fears, I pray I can give them the validation needed to overcome them, but maintain a healthy respect for their existence. May I attribute these lessons to the betterment of my soul, and learn when to accept my fear as justified and when to brave the unknown and push my limits.

Cheers.
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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Life is what happens while you're making other plans

Which is why most of us are left totally unprepared for the crashing down of wave after wave of disappointment, shame, revelation, exposure. Just when you think you've got things just the way you want them is when things will slowly start unravelling. The secret is, and listen closely now, to never feel secure in the first place. Build your life on the expectation that things will change, and be prepared to precariously glide with each wave like a ship over stormy seas, but never expect to know quite where things will end up.

My pride, identity and my self-awareness has taken a thorough alteration of purpose since my discovery in March, my definition of myself has been erased completely to be replaced with a blank- an open space to be filled with whoever I turn out to be now that all the labels have been peeled away. Why is it so alarming to realize I can be whomever I choose? It has been so long since I could simply do what comes naturally with little regard for who might be guarding feelings of disapproval. Maybe what I'm realizing is that choosing who to be gets me into deeper trouble than just being everything I am, that instead of struggling to steer my ship into the night perhaps I need to let go and discover whatever the world has waiting for me as it comes. Lay back, eyes to the sky, drifting passively through the storm, ears filled with the rage of the sea around me and the sound of my own breath, in and out. When the calm comes, as it inevitably will, and the sky is as luminous and open as it is now heavy with my fantasies and hopes dissolved into a million raindrops to be poured over me in sheets of drenching loneliness, I will be absolved.
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Midnight musings in E minor

Remembering a time when I was similarly lonely while playing my guitar tonight. I wrote a song, my best, on a night much like I find myself lost in now. But my fingers won't play what my mind wants to hear, and without my melody my muse is evading me. I keep finding myself back at Jericho, again and again, and remembering how deep that longing felt and how huge and overwhelming it was to yearn like that.

It echoes so many things about what I've felt recently that I feel that song on an entirely new level today, and I plan to post a video soon (no camera at the moment). I'll post the lyrics now, to pay my subconscious its due.

I woke up this morning
Alone again but for the sand between my toes
I cried this morning
Lost inside the pictures that my mind just won't let go
Vancouver skyline at midnight
You were mine that night
Sitting silent on the shore
You left that morning, and I'm waiting
Staring at the sky at Jericho
When I loved you there like I'd never loved anyone before

I woke up this morning
Almost thought I felt you here between my thighs
And I remember
The way my passion lights a candle in your eyes
I love your fingers
The way your lips move while you're talking in the night
I know you're hurting, and I'm trying
You know I'd die to simply make it all alright

Because I love you like I've never loved anyone before.


This was a song about missing my first love, the first time I felt the pain of being separated from someone you are so devoted to. At that time, I had never missed anything as much as I missed this love, this person who felt as much a part of me as he was a separate person. Missing my son adds a whole new depth to my awareness of yearning.

I yearn for many things. For safety, and routine, and responsibility. For refreshment and relaxation and freedom of spirit. For friendship and passion and livelihood. For intimacy, for empathy and understanding. But above all of these things I yearn for the smell of my son's scalp and the tickle of his hands rubbing my hair when he's feeling affectionate. I miss the way he says bubbles and sings along to Mickey Mouse. I miss hearing his mischievous chuckle when he flees from pants. I miss his squeezes and tucking him in.

I bide my time with clumsy chords and halves of coherent ideas, and soon there will be bed. Let's see what the morning brings.

Goodnight.
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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Testing.

If this goes according to plan, I'll be forever doomed to six-times-daily bloggage via cellular device.

As if I need more reasons to exclude myself from interpersonal exchanges in favor of my blackberry. Pshaw.

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Brevity is the soul of wit...

But you're not the boss of me. So be forever forewarned, I'm long-winded, wordy, and have too much time on my hands... which puts me in the perfect position to blog if only to get what's spinning in my head down into sentences to be read to myself later.

Today marks the beginning of a bold new step into a life I'd never expected for myself 6 months ago. For the first time in my life, I am totally, unequivocally unattached. No relationships, or shoddy excuses for pseudo-relationships like in years gone by. No roommates. No child for months to come. Just myself, and my brain.

I am making a lot of effort to be looking at the positives of this situation- maybe I'll find time to start writing music again, I can achieve some of my personal and physical goals, or maybe the time will give me some sort of insight into how to arrange my life onto a path that moves toward success, love and satisfaction for at least some span of time. I know nothing lasts forever, and I have been reminded of this more times in the last 4 months than ever before. In the back of my mind, I realize that people out there go through things like what I'm going through every day, and it helps to normalize the strain, and throws in a little hope. Someday, when the circumstances are what they need to be, I will have achieved enough personal satisfaction to feel genuinely happy again.

For now, I remain optimistic, because the knowledge that wallowing achieves nothing but deeper sadness is something I am still freshly familiar with. I am happy for many small things in my life- being a mother and having my soul, my breath, my universe making me proud every day, my family and the fact that I am finally a part of that family again, reconnecting with people who knew and loved me when I was living life to the fullest and can remind me of how much easier that is than I would like to admit, and for the people who have been finding me along the way and beginning to make their marks in the running saga that is the collective, respective lives we lead.

I would love to pretend that I am totally unaffected by the lives of the people around me, but the truth is, being committed is something I don't do intentionally. People I care about become irreversably entwined into my life regardless of the relationships I have with them, there are people I have known 17 years whom I see rarely but whose lives still play into mine as if fated that way, and I wouldn't change it for anything. I love that knowledge, that goodbye is a word, and that in the end we walk the path we walk whether it is chosen for us or we select it ourselves, and all paths cross and merge and separate but regardless we are walking together. We are all walking, and it is up to us to walk alone or to find ways to make this journey a co-operative effort. I will always choose the path that is enriched with the hands and eyes and lips and words and love of others, and offer as much as I can to enrich their journey on the way.

A life without emotion is a shell of a life indeed.