Yearly Archives: 2014

for you, i am sweeping words together

Winter has always been dif­fi­cult at times. At ‑15 or below, breath becomes a lay­er of ice on the win­dows when parked out­side, and I can do noth­ing but wait for the car to warm up again so I can see enough to dri­ve. At that point, it means I’m sit­ting in the car for longer than my com­mute. I try to take it as a good way to prac­tice patience, but it’s a hard wait after an eight hour shift on my feet. It’s still win­ter in all it’s muf­fling glo­ry though, the time in the year I most appre­ci­ate liv­ing in Canada. Girls and cats alike are more affec­tion­ate too, and I don’t mind being the source of heat.

cats and winter

I tend to get up around sun­rise now, and every time I step out­side before the rest of the world wakes up, it feels like I’m born again. It’s a chance for me to hit the reset but­ton on the last day. To let go of the past, even if it hap­pened only sev­en hours ago, and become a blank slate.

I also grad­u­al­ly broke the habit of check­ing my feeds after feel­ing jad­ed about news and media, then com­ing across this arti­cle. After months of absten­tion, I can say that I’ve gained time and lost noth­ing. It’s left me feel­ing increas­ing­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the world, but I know that means I’m begin­ning to learn what real­ly mat­ters.

50/50

I’m writ­ing as a way of prac­tic­ing self-com­pas­sion. Weeks get lost to the cus­tomers and com­mute, and when time off involves not think­ing or being around peo­ple, it does­n’t leave much room for per­son­al growth.

The prob­lem is that noth­ing feels real or true unless I write it down. The changes are start­ing to flow togeth­er, and I’m at var­i­ous stages of progress on sev­er­al fronts. There are no begin­nings, no ends, no chap­ters, no dis­tinc­tive tran­si­tions I can sum up neat­ly in a title. The lessons stretch out to years instead of months. Development has giv­en way to evo­lu­tion. It seems sil­ly to write about a feel­ing that won’t last from the first time I hit Save Draft to Publish.

I’ve been reach­ing out to new peo­ple cause it felt like every­thing I was doing was wrong. Marie came to feed the cats, not know­ing I was back from the hos­pi­tal. I broke down in her arms, and she bab­bled at me over break­fast, excus­ing her­self for talk­ing so much cause she was ner­vous about not know­ing how to help. I asked if she’d watch a movie with me, some­thing to do that was nor­mal and not cry­ing. It helped.

Jason’s also been talk­ing me through the upheaval. Advice is eas­i­er to accept when it comes from a sur­vivor, espe­cial­ly one who nev­er pre­sumes to know what’s best for me. He’s become the stick prod­ding me for­ward one small step at at time, a voice of rea­son in my ear that reminds me to keep on doing this until liv­ing is like breath­ing again.

It’s a reminder that I’m here only cause peo­ple believe in me; they’re the ones tip­ping the scales when it feels like I might as well flip a coin and let fate decide what I can’t.