You is smart, you is kind, you is important...

I love this line and will say this to myself, my Boxerbeast and anyone else who needs to hear it.

"You is smart. You is kind. You is important." The K-Dog knows the words - I've said it often enough to him - and he perks his ears and I swear, he smiles. They are words that we don't often hear and even less, say to ourselves. This year and last have been the catapult for change. Over the last five years, life has continued to hand me obstacles. It's been two years in August since my dad passed away suddenly from an aneurysm. He was there on the phone talking to me an hour before and then he was gone. My buffer, my slayer of demons, my rock was gone and I was left to pick up the pieces. I don't think I will ever get over losing him so suddenly, but looking back, I'm glad he went suddenly and with little suffering. The suffering remained with us - my mum, his wife of over 52 years, my brother and his family, my niece and nephew, and his multitude of friends who continue to share stories with me of the man my father was. And, as his daughter, I am so very proud of him and will continue to extol his virtues to whomever will listen.

That year, 2013, was a life changer. I had thought I had gone through enough changes and turmoil. Life had much more in mind for me. In the span of one year, I had an operation to remove a cyst and had a relationship end so abruptly that it left me reeling. I experienced a homeowner's nightmare when my basement flooded and I had a plethora of repairs with which to contend. I put my house on the market and had the house sale from hell, with four offers falling through and a house that remained on the market for five months before it sold. My dad left me a day after I moved to my new locale, my trusty car of over 11 years decided to kick the bucket and I got laid off. From January to October, life was pure hell. And then the real work started.

"You is kind. You is smart. You is important." It was time to get back to basics. After taking a bit to pick myself back up, I went to work. Psychoanalysis and Self-analysis. I finally found a counselor who heard me, listened to me, acknowledged me as a person and said the words I was yearning to hear for so many years: "You've been through a lot. There is a reason why you are the way you are." Even as I write this, I tear up. Two years and a lot of work later, those very words stand as a life preserver in a vast ocean that was my psyche.

My counselor, my friend, was a mirror. She showed me my image as I presented it to her and said: "You is smart, you is kind, you is important. This is what I see when I look at and speak with you. You are strong. You're still here. You're still fighting. You're constantly evaluating, re-evaluating and taking stock, and you're making the changes you need to be the person you were meant to be." Okay, it's not verbatim but it's what she said each week. We set goals. I attained them, and sometimes I didn't, but I always made the vow to try again the next week... and I did. I saw the spring in my step return, the smile on my face start to appear and a sparkle in my eye set to radiate again. "You are absolutely glowing" was a common phrase I started to hear. I sent myself back to school because the writers' market is not what it used to be. I realized I am meant to help people, so I signed up for the Medical Office Administration course at a local college and I not only succeeded but I excelled, attaining a 91 per cent while working part-time. I studied. I participated. I met new friends. I was placed at a hospital for more work experience, and while the job market is a crazy one, I secured nine interviews in two weeks and am now training at two different companies in the health field. I got one word wrong on my medical terminology exam after taking a CPR/First Aid training course, working nights and weekends at my part-time job. One wrong in a potential 500 medical terms. I was on fire.

It all stemmed from three sentences. "You is smart. You is kind. You is important." Those are words I rarely heard in my childhood and adult lives, and it was certainly something I wouldn't tell myself, because I was too busy concentrating on everything I was not. It is important to hear those words and say those words to yourself, but more importantly, it's best to accept yourself and see you for who you truly are. My friends saw it. My dad saw it, and now I see it. Granted, some days it's harder to see it than others, but it's then that I breathe, especially when worry seems to be getting the best of me. Seven seconds in. Five seconds to hold it in, and then seven seconds to exhale. It's all in the exhale. You let out the demons and forget what put you in that panicked place to begin with, and then you can pick up and continue your fight, no matter what war you're waging. Breathe. Remember who you are, and acknowledge that you may not be perfect every single second, but you're pretty darn awesome once you forgive yourself for your little imperfections and be the person you are meant to be.

"You is kind. You is smart. You is important." It's a line in a movie, but also a lesson for us all to learn. I'm so happy I learned it before it was too late.

My lot in life and other whingings

I’m sitting at work watching Felicity on Netflix. It’s a blast from the past and a bit of nostalgia, but also a bit of procrastination. For writing. For working. For my life. 

I’ve had a great year and a bad one rolled into one, all packaged up in multi-layered wrapping paper. With a big, fucking bow. You see, it all looks nice and bright and festive on the outside. A big smile plastered all over it. On the inside, it’s dark, dank and it’s where my secrets live. My secret fears, my insecurities and the things that I pack away, stuff away from the light of day hoping it would all go away.

It doesn’t. It festers and weeps and gets into crevices that even a broom, a pick axe can’t get loose. I’m lost in my psyche, in my past, in all of my perceived failures, and because I don’t see the light of day – my true self – I’m stuck with pleasing others and creating a front of what I think everyone else thinks I should do or be.

It’s not a new thing. I’ve done it all my life and I got really good at it. Or so I thought.  But it manifested in procrastination. In sleeping. In shirking responsibilities. In not applying for some jobs because I didn’t think I could do the job. Of not being hired anyways. Why bother when I’d only fail in the end. Because I’m not good enough, not deserving enough. It was status quo. 

It can no longer be status quo. While this past year was boundary pushing, it pushed too hard for my own comfort and I pushed back. By doing nothing. By keeping the status quo in the forefront and not working on the things I needed to. The scary things in the corner of my box.

It’s been two full weeks since the bomb, and now I’m dealing with the fallout. The fallout is huge.  Life-changing and scary as shit. So scary that it’s tempting to put my head back in the sand and pretend everything is fine. I can’t because it’s not.

I’m not fine. I’m swimming against the tide with no way to know where to find the water’s surface. It’s like drowning but without the water. I used to say that I rarely cried. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t shed tears. Over Scott. Over me. Over my faults and what they’ve brought into my life. Over my basement leak. Over my parents who still think they’re not the interfering kind and my inability to set real, impenetrable boundaries without cutting complete contact with them.

I’m trying to go for counseling. The crazy doctor. Actual psychoanalysis to help me cope. My immediate concern is selling my house, finding a new one and keeping my financial head afloat while I try to figure out my actual one. I’m scared, I’m confused and swimming upstream despite the odds. It’s time I love myself again, not because I’m supposed to but because I’m worth it. I have to figure out how to measure that worth and hold onto it despite what my inner demons continue to tell me.

I wish me much luck.

Anger at its best

I’m really angry. So angry that little things are getting to me. It’s been a long month since Scott left. Up and left. Abandoned. I feel abandoned by my parents, even though I told them I needed space. I know they’re trying but I’m just so angry at the last 40 years that I haven’t dealt with. That is not their fault. It’s mine. Their fault lies in continuing to treat me like a child, even at the age of 40.

I went to see Dr. Hall today. She gave me permission to be selfish and not talk to them until I’m able to set up a game plan to deal with them. She said it’s not something I can do by myself, because obviously my ways of coping with them don’t work. I’m too involved. I’m too mired in it all. I’m too tired to deal.

I’ve contemplated suicide a number of times over the years and have also reached out just in time. I hope this is the case again. I’m really trying. To make my own decisions, but even then I question whether I’m just going through the motions and if I’m making the right decision – decisions about everything.

The biggest decision I’ve made in the last month is to sell my house and start fresh. I don’t want to give up the house. I’ve known it for the past 10 years, and it’s known me. But it’s been a constant worry, over bills, over what to do to improve the house. Scott made it easy by taking over. His goals became mine. I didn’t have to think because he was there making decisions that I couldn’t. I question every thought I have. 

I don’t know when I started to feel inferior to Scott. Perhaps it was because I was unable to move, unable to make decisions because I was so worried about making the wrong one that I lost sight of what I wanted. I still don’t know what I want. Ideally, it should be all mapped out. I’m planning as I go, and still worried that my decisions today will have an adverse effect on moments in the future. Lack of any decision also has an adverse effect because I’m stagnant. Mired in my own thoughts, in my feelings of inadequacy.

Scott tried to push me, to make decisions, to tell him where I wanted my future to go. I wanted to be with him. To have joint goals. I lost myself in the process, and I’m not really sure I knew myself in the first place.

I’m always one to please: my parents, bosses, co-workers, others. Decisions were made by asking everyone’s opinions but mine, because I was told over and over again that my opinion didn’t count. That I was wrong. In every aspect – my laugh, my look, my personality. I became everyone else’s personality. Every personality but my own because I, at the age of 40-something, still didn’t know what my personality entailed. What makes me tick. I know I root for the underdog because that’s who I am. I root for the downtrodden because that’s how I’ve felt for so long. When you’re told “be careful, you’re going to fail, you can’t survive without others because you don’t know best” it’s hard to see who you really are, the person you want to be – because you’re so used to others telling you who you should be, how you should act.

Still wondering about my saucy marriage...

An oldie but a goodie, so much I thought it deserved a second peek. 'Cause it's funny and I think I'm still in love with that nice piece of meat...

I'm quite enjoying the single life - being responsible for only my own well-being, coming and going freely save spending more time with Kao so he's not so lonely - so you can imagine my surprise when I considered entering into a union so delicious that I was aflush with excitement, drooling at the possibility of a rendez-vous with a piece of fresh meat.

It started this past Wednesday evening at a dinner held by an old co-worker. Her and her husband had invited me to break bread with them, perhaps taking pity on me cooking for one again. As I sat down to a barbecue dinner, I looked across the table and felt a pang, a flitter of my mending heart.

He was rich, full-bodied, red-blooded, and I couldn't wait to ravish him. I raised my glass and gave a slow wink and an even slower smile to show my interest. A flirt by nature, I had forgotten how fun it was to flutter my eyelashes and use my feminine wiles.

He was the perfect companion, the strong silent type but with an aroma that spoke volumes. He wore a suit of reddish-brown, with a spicy disposition that bordered on saucy.

Our initial rendez-vous was brief but I knew I had fallen in love and announced at the table our intention to marry. My fellow Cell Block C inmate was surprised but laughed, knowing I was serious but also realizing that the union would never hold up.

I tried to savour it, hold on and lovingly caress his flank. It had been a while since I had seen such a specimen, choosing others with a more refined, blander palette. It was sometimes easier that way - less temptation and a bit less guilt. But in this case I was done for. I had succumbed.

"I love this so much I think I want to marry it," I had announced as I slipped my knife in time and time again, stretching the culinary experience out for an hour or more. Sauteed mushrooms, summer salad with feta cheese and olive oil, corn on the cob, roasted potatoes... it was all good but nothing held my attention the way Mr. Sirloin did.

Now, three days later, I find myself yearning for him, calling him in the middle of the night as I remember how tender and loving he was - the way he fit perfectly on my fork and let me take from him time and time again with no questions, no requests and no strings.

Okay, so yes, I didn't have an encounter with a potential new partner - certainly not this soon after I'd managed to oust the Ex Man and take my house back - but it was intense nonetheless. And, it was a great break to the week, to visit with friends, talk over dinner and enjoy a piece of meat that I don't otherwise ingest. I'm sure we'll meet again, but I may have to wait. After all, I am in mourning for the last rendez-vous I had around the barbecue.

Too close for comfort

I owe you an update. I know. It's been a long three months full of hope, optimism and more than a few "tears caught in the throat" situations.

I'm not one to cry. Just ask any of my friends. If the tears well, I take a deep breath and say "Suck it up.  There are people who are worse off." And, there always are. There are weary cancer soldiers (and I include their families in that group). There are those with no support system. There are even those who do not know that some situations deserve laughter instead of worry. But, these past few months, I've cried. Not as openly as some friends and family would wish for me, but tears nonetheless. And, while I owe you an update, a "hey I'm still here" post, I owe you the truth as well.

Christmas has come and gone. It was harder than most because of the roller coaster of weeks prior. My dad - my fighter of monsters under the bed - was more victim than soldier. He was weak, pale and mortal. October and November brought a constant blur, of visits to the St. Catharines Hospital, of late night texts and a slew of ambulance rides - so many that my parents' neighbours were used to the swirling lights and the sirens. "Oh, there goes Joe" they said.

There he went time and time to the hospital, each time with worrying symptoms. Crohns, C. difficile, pneumonia, an irregular heartbeat, congestive heart failure and finally a mini-stroke. The doctors were baffled (or at least they never seemed to have an answer). It was daily and it was difficult. While I could focus on the day-to-day, the future was not yet determined. To see him shuffle from the gurney to the xray table and back to the bed was horrible. Rubbing his feet was the only solace and he put up with it. He also put up with the worried looks  my mum and I would exchange when his memory failed and his feet, legs and hands swelled from the lack of circulation. The strong and vibrant character was failing. His larger-than-life stature seemed stunted, changed, and closer to the end of his journey rather than a hiatus.

But, there is a light - a glimpse of the soldier he has always been. It's been over a month since his mini-stroke, and thanks to a revamping of his medications - additions of one and decrease of another (10 in all, if you can believe it) - he has had no other symptoms, no other ambulance rides, and he's now gathering his strength at the local gym by walking the track (and taking lots of naps).

Christmas was low-key - gathering at my brother and sister-in-law's house to relieve some of the Christmas dinner stress from Mum. There were lots of hugs and I love you's. And there was lots of laughter and tears. I never miss a chance now to tell someone I love them because you never know when it will be your last chance.

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

Hello Blogosphere. It’s been a while and I’ve really missed you, missed you so much that I thought about you almost every day since I’ve been away.

In my time away from you, I’ve done a lot of thinking, a lot of working and a lot of living. I’ve rearranged my living room at least three times and it’s even now going under its latest transformation. I’ve moved couches, rescued an ottoman from the Goodwill for a meager $10 (I brought them down from $15) and offered new homes for things that no longer worked in my humble abode – things that no longer fit my existence. It’s been liberating and a little scary as I stumble to discover my new sense of self. My living room reflects that as I wonder what exactly my new sense of style and self entails. And, like myself, my home for the past eight years still feels unfinished despite the work that’s already taken place.

I will admit that I was stuck in limbo for a bit. It was like I was thinking “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” But it was. I was. Broken. Holding onto an image of what or who I was supposed to be. I can’t say I’m fully better now, but I’m definitely a little closer than I ever have been before.

So, in celebration of the changes I’ve made I am going to let you in on what has been happening since I last wrote, the places I’ve been and the new experiences that have popped up.

• I got myself a new tenant this past September. He’s got a snake tattoo but I didn’t judge him for that. While he’s a little rough around the edges looks-wise, he’s kind, decent, honest and he loves Kao, proving it’s best not to judge a book by its cover. Oh, and he willingly shares in the chores. My floors, bathroom and kitchen have never been cleaner. I also laid down the rules of the house before he moved in and I’ve remained true to them and to myself.
• I developed elephant ankles and claw hands in August from a serious infection. And while it was not fun and I don’t want to see the inside of an emergency room or my doctor for quite some time, I did discover just how awesome my friends are – bringing me smut magazines, soup and cleaning my house when I could barely manage to walk the stairs to my bedroom.
• On that note, I’ve forged an awesome new friendship with an old acquaintance – one that I hope to have for a very long time.
• I visited an antique market with another new friend where we unveiled a love of antiques and a genuine appreciation for each other.
• I found that my decorating style is not traditional and not modern but rather transitional, sort of like me.
• I started dating, not as a way to find my next relationship but more to have fun, meet new people and to realize that not every fork will match my spoon.
• I made Anasatan insanely proud because both of us realized that the initial change of not accepting second best was not a one-time occurrence.
• I got hired, or I should say re-hired, on a part-time contract with the safety association and learned that I am a good event planner. It’s also closer to where I want to be career-wise and that my skills transfer brilliantly.
• While we did not manage to attend the taping of The Rick Mercer Report one Friday night as planned (we got stuck in downtown Toronto traffic), Anasatan and my extended family did enjoy an awesome dinner, a lot of laughs and a plethora of smoked meat at a downtown deli.
• Mags, G-Girl and I attended a comedy night on Labour Day weekend that, unbeknown to us, was held above a sex club. We looked in, curious to see what it was all about. Judging from the patrons already there, it was not for us. So, instead we ventured off to see what other trouble we could get ourselves into on a Sunday night and ended up getting a three finger salute from a rather attractive exotic dancer at a local strip club.
• My Cloak and Dagger Dad admitted that we’re more alike than we ever thought. He too had a doctor tell him he was full of shit (he had a blockage in his lower intestines)… UPDATE: Dad has just been diagnosed with Crohn’s and has spent the last two weeks in hospital fighting a myriad of illnesses, including potential pneumonia and a definite irregular heartbeat. We’re hoping he’s on the mend since he hates the meals hospitals pass off as real food. I’m trying to keep my hopes up and away from googling his symptoms. The potential diagnoses are just too much to process right now.

 That’s not all but it’s late and my insomnia appears to be receding and I must catch that wave. Until next time, blogosphere. Oh, how much I have missed you!

Missing: myself

The other day a friend of mine asked me how I was doing since The Ex Man had left my humble abode and my life. She asked if I missed him and if there was any chance that we would work things out.

It's been over a month so it was a fair question. I had time to be acclimatized to a bedroom without hitting my toe on a dresser that was too big for the space or sleep in the bed that kept mysteriously losing bolts (but only on my side - coincidence or murder plot... hmm...). I also had a full month of permanent garbage duty and poop patrol details, and a month of no cheesy lines or stories repeated verbatim ad nauseum.

The truth of the matter is that while I miss the companionship, the connection between two human beings I don't miss him as a partner. It was a partnership that never truly was. I don't miss the long silences and stares as he tried to guess how I would react before deliverying any news - from his dinner preference or weekend plans to his penchant for Money Mart loans. I miss laughing over Kao's antics or how he'd play hide and seek throughout the house and have Kao chase him up the stairs laughing (The Ex Man, not Kao - that's just ridiculous). I don't miss relying on someone who could not be relied upon.

Even though he was a quiet guy (and still is), the house is even quieter now. Kao has taken to grunting at me, constantly by my side to play, go out, romp, throw sticks, rubber chickens and pigs. He does let me sleep in and he hasn't tried to eat any more of my undergarments but I think even he feels the void. To say it's any one person, I can't say. He just senses the shift in dynamics, the table set for one. As I write this, he's grunting at me to go out or to give me a kiss. I sure wish he could use his words.

I miss words, conversation, a connection between two people who live in close quarters. I miss having my back scratched every night before sleep and someone to tell me how awesome, beautiful, sexy and smart I am. So now, I scratch my own back (don't use the spagetti strainer if ever you visit - it's not in the kitchen anymore). Every morning when I'm greeted with my image in the mirror, I tell myself exactly what I see: a strong, beautiful, sexy, smart and funny woman who stood her ground and refused to accept second best.

It's working, slowly but surely. But it's in these quiet times that I yearn for the hopes of days past when I believed in and was excited by the possibilities that lay ahead in the new relationship of four years past, and when I believed that there was a fork to match my spoon.

I know there will come a day when the quiet times and these feelings will slip away, and now, a month past, it is getting easier and easier. I may just have to keep the radio on 24-7 until I'm dancing joyously and missing nothing.