Separation Anxiety

I dropped my mobile. For the umpteenth time. I knew I needed to upgrade but I really wanted to wait until the summer!

Now I am being forced to get a new one. AH! The decisions I need to make quickly because it's been 12 hours and I feel disconnected.

The worst is I know people are texting me I just cannot read them because my inbox is full and my phone needs to flip open to erase the full inbox. It's the inside screen that's broken! C'est terrible!

Now it's come down to Rogers or Telus. Iphone, Android, Blackberry. In reality getting a Blackberry will be cheapest. Every provider seems to think that's the best phone! I really hate Blackberries. Like I just don't think I can own one. I want an Iphone but I wanted an unlocked one from Apple. I don't have enough saved for that yet. :( Nor do I think I'm patient enough to wait for the Iphone to arrive!

My family is all with Rogers-well my brother, mother, father. I'm with Telus just paying month to month right now since my contract ended with them in August.

There is just so much to consider to keep myself "connected" these days.

AND if I go with Iphone is it the Iphone3 or Iphone4. I want the newest one right? But everyone likes the curved corners of the 3 better. Oooh boy.

I also wish I could take care of this today. And not be going to work.

Not over. Just moved on.

I've been overly busy the last two months. It's both good and bad. Multiple times things have crossed my mind to update but someone asked me recently "Are you over him yet?" in reference to my ex-boyfriend.

I honestly didn't have a straight answer. I shrugged it off. Made it seem like my grieving process over the relationship was finished. But no relationship ends. Whether romantic or not without leaving scars and those scars prove that the process is never finished. We take them with us into our future and are reminded of how things occurred in the past.

So am I "over" a person I still to this day love? Who for a long time I was in love with? No.

I'm not "over" any failed relationship. But I've moved on from them. I've noticed patterns and am trying to change those patterns. Not myself but recognizing faults in how I react and deal isn't changing my core. It's creating a stronger sense of self. It's creating strength out of misery instead of just being miserable.

I can get out of bed now. I can hear his name without holding back tears. I can reflect on the good and the bad and realize we were young and naive. And I can process what I don't want in a relationship anymore. And the essentials I absolutely must have.

But no, I'm not over him. I didn't build a bridge and leave him behind. I carry what he taught me everyday, even if I don't think about him or it everyday. But I've moved on. That's all there is to do.

You can sink or swim. I'm a water baby. I only had one choice. Well no, I tried to sink. But my flotation devices around me were too buoyant and kept me afloat until I got so close to drowning that natural human survival instinct kicked in.


I've never stopped loving him and I won't. I truly believe if you love someone you always do. Even if you can't express that. It doesn't change how you feel or how you want them to succeed and be happy.

That's all that matters in it all. That I can still love at the end and have people I do love and who kept me afloat long enough to save me.

Quick thought

While I'm cleaning (okay tidying) my room. I am putting the books to the side that I have read versus the ones I have not gotten to yet.

I've been on a Canadian Kick lately.

Every book has left me both disturbed in ways and yet thinking "This image is beautiful."

My conclusion: Canadian Literature is disturbed and beautiful. This reflects the unresolved issues both the authors and the country has with its past and the idea that we are fully multicultural. Fully accepting. This repression and over sensitivity towards being tolerant has mutated into a deep seeded cultural affliction.

Or maybe tidying is just getting to me.

I am a Beautiful Loser.

I just finished reading Cohen's "Beautiful Losers" today while on break at work.

It was bittersweet. The book itself felt very much oxymoronic at times.I felt I had no idea what was going on a lot of the time yet, that seemed to be the point to me.

I have no academic basis to bounce my ideas around so I'm just jumping in here but I truly never understood the richness of Canadian Literature until my course last year.

The images in this novel created nightmares for me for a while. But I also came away after my reading sessions feeling renewed and less alone.

Perhaps, that affect is more because of how my life has been going lately and being able to connect with the narrator, with F. and with Edith.

Or perhaps it is just that I keep running over the question, "How to fuck a saint?" and find it absolutely brilliant.

Knowing both enough[meaning I have knowledge of the 'facts'] about Aboriginals and the history of the settlement of Canada helped with this novel but at the same time, the images are so rich and the descriptions so vivid that I didn't need to know and let Cohen take me on a journey.

I think we are all Beautiful Losers in this world, just reaching out for that touch of humanity [or divinity] to keep us from falling into a treehouse we cannot escape from. To keep us from being constipated in all every way. To keep us from being alone with ourselves. Because that is what I think most people find to be Hell. They need to know they have a connection to the world beyond themselves.

That seems oxymoronic too. But I truly think most people hate themselves and just refuse to admit it. So they reach out to get a connection to someone else, something else to "prove" they are loved, needed, wanted in this world.

That's what F. kept trying to do. He admits it in his letter. Edith admits it too. That's why she let F. change her.

That's why F. tries to make the divine human. To 'fuck a saint' is making the holy tangible. Touchable. Fuckable.

The text is both hard to read and easy to read. My eyes followed easily and yet sometimes my brain needed time to catch up. [This could have been due to my own exhaustion at certain points of reading]

Beautiful Losers made it okay for me to admit to being a Beautiful Loser. Again. And let me get back to myself in a way I forgot I needed. In a way I missed.

Or maybe just as the narrator is in Hell in Montreal, I really feel like I'm in Hell right now and so the 'lessons' that were taught hit me too close too home. Literally.

In any case, Cohen truly has written a wonderful novel that I am only saddened it has taken me so long to read.

"Happy" Christmas

Life has been beyond busy the last few months but it always catches up to you at Christmas time. The time of happiness and gratitude.

Except that, I usually notice more people miserable at Christmas. Personally, I stopped liking the holiday once the magic of Santa Clause was removed. That seems silly, especially now that I think of how terrifying the story of a stranger entering your house to give you things actually is.

However, this Christmas has ended my trying to enjoy the season. From now on I won't celebrate it. I'm sure at some point I'll eat my words but I cannot justify keeping something so negative in my life any longer.

With the new year approaching, I am continuing my journey to happiness and that means surrounding myself with positives and things that I enjoy.

This Christmas I have witnessed behaviour fair beyond what the meaning of Christmas is supposed to be. It's not about the gifts. It has never been about the gifts for me. I would rather give than receive.

I spent Christmas night in my room in order to "keep the peace" in my family. I got called Anti-Catholic at work because I dislike the holiday by a Catholic who did not attend Church on Christmas AND the Sunday after. And the audacity of such a statement when I'd rather have nothing for the "Celebration of Jesus' Birth" and because I've seen this religious holiday destroyed and demoralized to the point of no recognition disgusts me.

I don't begrudge anyone who gets joy and love from the season. I have just witnessed too much pain and suffering from this one day, this season that I cannot fathom going further with it.

Cheers to the new year!

"Without the War"

To hold the power to change history would be both a blessing and a curse. No one who has that power would actually be able to fore see the changes that would occur in a permanent way for all of society. More good could occur, yet at the same time there is the unforeseeable bad as well. As life is all twisted up in the past, that one change could even result in that person with the power not being born.
However, taking all of the risks into account, if I had this incredible power of change, I would choose to change the occurrence of the Great War. I’d make sure that diplomacy was a key role between nations. I’d ensure that Europe was peaceful. The militarism that was occurring would be put to a halt in these talks between nations, with each country holding an army but not going into an arms race. Nationalism would not create tension between nations but a bonding point to share customs and gain knowledge of one another for a new understanding of Europe. United together as one, but still individual nations.
This change would create such a different world than the one we are living in today. Without the Great War, it is possible no depression would occur, no Second World War, no Cold War, and no War on Terrorism. The entire century would be completely revamped. It is quite possible that this change would have just delayed the inevitable but wishful thinking makes one believe otherwise.
Why would I choose such a drastic change? Being to more than one World War I cemetery has really made the impact of that war stand out—the senseless deaths that just led to more and more loss. Yes, the soldiers fought well and brave and for me. For that I am eternally grateful, but if the war hadn’t occurred, they would have lived full lives. A generation of men would not have died. And just decades later, another war wiped them out again. The Great War really began a century of violence and turbulence that has made the entire world paranoid. Unfortunately, this is the world I have grown up in and though I can still see the love and beauty that is around, I wish more people were able to put their guard down. Embrace one another instead of being leery of unknown people, countries, and races.
I would change the occurrence of the Great War in hopes that people would be able to accept each other more. It is not a lot to ask for tolerance, but it is understandable in this day and age, with the world’s history, why people are unable to be more tolerant. The yearning for a little world stability has reached its breaking point, and World War I seems to have been the catalyst for the events that led up to this point in 2010.
Hopefully, even without this alteration, the world will reach peace and stability for the sake of all human kind soon. Especially for the past generations, those who gave the present so much to be thankful for and for the future generations, in order for them to be more open, more loving and more compassionate with one another.


(I have no idea how I got this published back in 2007 but I did!)

Life in a Shoebox

Life in a Shoebox
Biology must play a roll in where you end up working. My grandmother on my father’s side worked in a shoe store and now I find myself in the same situation. I mean, our situations aren’t the “same” seeing is she worked on the East Coast and I work in Southern Ontario and the stores are different, but shoes haven’t changed much in regards to the components that make them up-insole, upper and outsole. I’m probably even selling similar styles that she did when she worked in Halifax seeing is what’s fashionable goes in and out of style constantly. As per a discussion with a co-worker though, I hope acid washed jeans don’t make a comeback no matter how hard they are trying. Some things were never fashionable.
I wonder sometimes if my grandma ever thought I’d be selling shoes like she did. I mean, my selling usually revolves around the client and a lot of the time fashion. Whereas I would think she’d have focused more on quality. Which comments on the society we have created, quantity over quality, and disposable one-use products, versus having shoes for 20 years because they were built properly and with quality materials. Now I do see the upside to man-made materials and saving the planet that way. But it has to come down to 6 of one, half a dozen of another-disposable products taking up a landfill or farming animals for human use. Essentially it leads to the same end-selfishness on the part of human beings always one step “ahead” of the lesser beings on the food chain. Forgetting their instincts, drive to survive, and the ability to pass genes along in order to preserve our own genes within the world.
It comes down to human beings being like shoes. They have an insole, an upper, and an outsole and just like shoes it comes down to the quality of materials and craftsman ship of the individuals who made them. Each person is uniquely crafted to how they end up and how they are defined, just as shoes are defined. Maybe a “stuck up” person would be a high heel and perhaps, a “manly man” is a hiking boot. With shoes, yes the outsole and upper are important, but these all come down to aesthetics and personal preference rather than true need. Just like shoes, in humans the person is based on their “Insole” and how the insole was constructed varies from person to person. In shoes, most people look for a shoe that fits comfortably. While that may not be an exact replica in people, we do look for people we “fit” with, whether it in a friendship or romantic relationship.
The insole, or personality, of a person is shaped in the unending debate of nature verse nurture, that is to say, unlike shoes, the potential to have been born with certain traits. But either way, a human’s inner self is shaped through mechanical hands that twist and tug and pull until they are shaped into what appears to be a human being.
Yet, this is not what people usually look to when considering a shoe or a human being. I, myself, will admit to choose shoes based solely on the look and not the comfort, choosing based on the upper and outsole rather than the insole. And everyday humans make these judgments about other peoples outsole and upper. Rather, the barrier that protects their inner self from being worn by those undeserving of finding the comfort of their insole. The part that was sculpted with loving hands, not bitterness or anger, but gentle caresses, sweet whisperings and most of all love.
So yes, humans are like shoes. They possess an insole, an outsole and an upper, all of which they are judged on and criticized about. But the difference between a “good” shoe and a “bad” shoe is always the test of time, the equation of how long you can have them without wearing out and how long you can wear them without giving in. It’s all about the insole.