Shirley is a funny woman. Really. Someone had recently noted that she uses the phrase, “Well this is it!”, a lot. It’s usually for situations of agreeableness, and spoken with iambic dimetre, emphasized on every other syllable.

Shirley’s in denial about the whole matter.

There are always news reports and stories of mass murderers, pedophiles, rapists, sociopaths whom no one ever suspects. In my head I always think that it doesn’t matter how someone may be perceived on the outside, that anyone could be the next notorious psychopath. Shirley, however, is one of the few people I would have a very difficult time believing as being able to hurt anyone. Some may think that it’s sad to be so cynical, so untrusting of almost anyone, but that’s just the way my worldview has developed.

Put simply, she’s an innocent person. Not innocent in the ignorant sense, which is something that I had only recently begun to distinguish, but innocent in the good, wholesome, true, honourable sense. I realize that this makes me trust her about as much as I trust my other friends. I honestly feel like I can divulge almost anything to her without worrying about being judged or misinterpreted.

Yet there are things that I don’t let her know, because I firmly believe that our working relationship isn’t worth the risk, if there just happened to be something she found out that she couldn’t deal with.

So doesn’t this mean that I don’t truly trust her?

Quite a few weeks ago, on another Sunday, I woke up with Loo sleeping next to me. I could never sleep past seven because of my work hours, and Loo rarely gets to bed before 11 the night before. Our schedules were, and still are, almost an eight hour shift away from each other. This doesn’t put us in the greatest of moods, and makes us say things that we don’t mean (on my end, at least, I can’t speak for her).

Like on that Sunday, after waking up and sitting in the IKEA PELLO for an hour listening to my music, I was grumpy to say the least. I wasn’t tired enough to sleep, but I wasn’t rested enough to do anything.

I decided to just get out and walk, not suspecting how beautiful the autumn day was. Everything I loved most about the fall was in that morning; the light chill in the air, the layers of colours, the manifest atmosphere. The walk was brief, just along the canal and back, but it was a shiver of the senses that only comes out a few days of the year.

When I returned, I still wasn’t in the best of sorts. My frustration about our mismatched schedules was starting to come through. Loo got up and we argued, trying to figure out who was to blame. In the end, I realized that it wasn’t either of our faults, but we were both paying for it.

Even though we argued, we ended up resolving things, a little wiser, and still just as tired. Another hurdle jumped, another obstacle that won’t get in our way again. I like to think that only good came out of that morning, and that if it didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have experienced what I was meant to.

Like watching joggers kick up the autumn leaves strewn across the pavement.

It’s funny…I always think of the stereotypical, recently divorced husband, and think to myself “I’ll never end up like that”. I’ll never “go back” to living on canned food, messy rooms, or general unkemptness if I ever split up with a long-term girlfriend or wife. So I try to live my life the same if I’m in a relationship or not, and not depend on someone else to do things for me, by being healthy and clean when I’m not going out with someone.

Then I realize that there are already things that Loo does for me that I wouldn’t do myself. I don’t have the patience to make my bed, but she can’t stand to sleep in wrinkled sheets, so she makes the bed every day. She buys fresh vegetables, because I always purchase the easy-to-cook frozen ones. Can I go back to living without little sweet peppers packed with my lunch, or without someone to brush the cat hair from my clothes as I get dressed for work? How much of ourselves do we knowingly or willingly give away, when we accept the help of others?

The days can go on with regularity over and over, one day indistinguishable from the next.

—Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver

Every day I think that I’ll catch up on sleep at night, but I never seem to get the chance. I have time here and there to write, but things don’t come out properly when I’m tired. Even on the weekends, when I expect to be able to sleep in, I’m always off somewhere, doing something. It’s such a change from how I was living last year; no school, no job, no girlfriend, with all my friends still attending university. I lost all sense of time.

I’m busier than ever at work, and it’s a great feeling to know that I’m responsible for so much…for meeting deadlines, for completing projects, for coming up with solutions to peoples’ problems. It’s a lot of stress, but it’s a great challenge. Being forced to work with a lack of sleep has made me more accustomed to thinking while fatigued, something that I never thought was possible. I used to need a proper eight hours a day to think, otherwise I could only operate at a basic level. Only one day in the last month have I felt rested. The fact that I’m still going and getting things done is a big deal to me. And now it feels like I’m finally working towards something, in my relationships, in my career, even in my equity and assets.

I remember Pat telling me to enjoy my unemployment, and I did exactly that. I appreciated every minute of it, and now I appreciate every moment that I have something to do. I appreciated the freedom of being single, and now I appreciate the comfort of being with someone.

I wanted to thank you for changing my life.

Then I realized that you didn’t do anything. You were completely selfish, completely inconsiderate. I picked myself up and made the best of what you left me as. Loving you was the important part, not anything that you had ever done.

I realized that it wasn’t you who changed my life. It was the experience. It was the conscious effort to turn my life around.

It was me.