Posts tagged with "busy"

i'm okay

I can say that now.

It’s hard to tell exact­ly when every­thing became too much for me to han­dle, but I knew I reached sta­ble ground when Marie said it was nice to see me smile. It seems like she’s only seen me at my worse — when I’m not cop­ing and try­ing to ratio­nal­ize all the wrong things — but she still wel­comes me every time with­out any expec­ta­tions, and that’s the kind of accep­tance I need at this point in my jour­ney.

self-portrait

This is my okay face.

Not to say there aren’t strug­gles, espe­cial­ly months like this, when I’m deal­ing with col­i­tis flare-ups on a dai­ly basis and the con­stant feel­ing of being over­whelmed. Between the time I spend to nour­ish myself, find­ing peace with so much of my past, and this love that found me, I’ve start­ed to under­stand how life can catch up to a per­son with­out warn­ing. There’s bare­ly a chance to process the devel­op­ments in my head, let alone record curves and colours with a cam­era.

I’m anx­ious to get to the point where I can start grow­ing instead of heal­ing, and liv­ing instead of sur­viv­ing. Being okay means it’s eas­i­er to deal with the inse­cu­ri­ties and moments of weak­ness­es I face on my way there.

so we beat on

Life at the com­ic book shop con­tin­ues to be the Empire Records fan­ta­sy every­one dreams it to be. Maybe that’s why some­one walks in every shift to hand in a resume. Even peo­ple who have no inten­tion of look­ing for a job ask if there are any open­ings as soon as they see the merch catered to every genre of geek.

The fact that there are only a dozen among us means the crew is tight. I get to play back-cash DJ and turn up the elec­tron­i­ca that’s come to define this peri­od of recov­ery. Still, there are days when the com­put­er breaks down on a night when I’m run­ning a tour­na­ment by myself, I have to do all the pair­ings man­u­al­ly, and get­ting home to a hot show­er is the purest relief.

dog in snow

Having a steady stream of plans mixed in with work means I’m con­stant­ly wak­ing up to an alarm. It’s wear­ing me down, but my need for stim­u­la­tion is out­weigh­ing my need for sleep. For now, at least.

I don’t write any­more cause I get my val­i­da­tion through peo­ple. The right ones set aside time for me, lis­ten as much as they speak, and don’t treat me any dif­fer­ent­ly cause of my past. I haven’t felt the need to sort out my thoughts — one of the main rea­sons I used to write — as much as accept myself. It’s a mat­ter of patience at this point, and weath­er­ing the rough peri­ods.

Arcade Fire — Reflektor tour

Arcade Fire on their Reflektor tour, fea­tur­ing Stephen Harper as tam­bourine-play­ing box head.

That means I’m still learn­ing how to take care of myself. Still com­ing to terms with the fact that love is so rarely clean or tidy or in our con­trol, but real­iz­ing that’s okay. Still try­ing to believe that I should­n’t be embar­rassed of any­thing I’ve suf­fered. Still fig­ur­ing out my idea of hap­pi­ness, what’s mean­ing­ful and what’s pos­si­ble.

finishing the game

It’s been an aim­less win­ter. Some days full of mean­ing, oth­ers pass­ing with­out so much as a moment worth remem­ber­ing. I’ve learned to cher­ish every storm cause each one could be your last. Who knows when you’ll get to walk on trails cut through tan­gled branch­es with the snow as wet and thick and heavy as this again?

long driveway with snow

The hol­i­days snuck up on me. I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out where all the time has gone and how best to use what’s left. The only dec­o­rat­ing I’ve done for the sea­son is a real pine wreath (gen­er­ous­ly giv­en to me by Steph) hung on the office door. A small act that does­n’t seem like much com­pared to the glo­ri­ous ceil­ing-scrap­ing trees in the hous­es of my friends and neigh­bours, but cer­tain­ly more than I’ve done in the recent years. It’s an easy con­ces­sion to make against my grow­ing dis­taste for the com­mer­cial­ized Christmas cul­ture when my room is filled with the scent of sap, scat­tered pine nee­dles, and oth­er reminders of life.

car-in-snow

The ever-faith­ful steed.

My exis­tence is defined by what I have left to do, and the list grows ever short­er. I live week-by-week, through cycles of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and play, try­ing to meet each need in turn. It’s always a del­i­cate bal­ance to be man­ag­ing when so much in life is out of your con­trol.

As for the short term, I’m off to Shirley’s for Christmas and my annu­al dose of fam­i­ly. It’ll be a com­plete break from my reg­u­lar life of sin­gle-serv­ing meals and nev­er being around more than one per­son at a time. I imag­ine we’ll spend most of the days eat­ing fin­ger foods and watch­ing real­i­ty TV among the ram­bunc­tious flus­ter of her kids. I always look for­ward to see­ing how they’re car­ry­ing their grown-up voic­es and how their styles have changed.

hot chocolate

This is the time of year I’m most scared of being left with­out plans1, but recent­ly I haven’t had enough time alone. It’s left me feel­ing numb and tired and that’s exact­ly what I need right now.

Friends still make the best dis­trac­tions. It’s easy to hide from any­thing when you’re shar­ing a blan­ket and some ear­ly episodes of Trailer Park Boys.

  1. Also why I usu­al­ly make a trip to Toronto. []

reduction

Heather G made reser­va­tions for us (and Sergey) at the Back Lane Café last week. We had­n’t seen each oth­er since the sum­mer, before they were home­less 1 and I start­ed recov­er­ing. Last time I saw her, she left me with a take­out Hintonburger and a med­i­ta­tion audio­book that she hoped would help me feel bet­ter. It was so sweet that she did­n’t under­stand at all what I was going through, but tried so hard to help with very thought­ful gifts any­way.

This time, she would­n’t let me pay, even though she treat­ed me last time as well, and she said please with such heart­felt intent that I knew she’d be hurt if I did­n’t give her the hon­our. We’d been play­ing phone tag for weeks up to that point, and between their careers and camp­ing, they could only spare them­selves for a meal sans tea or dessert. It made me real­ize how pre­cious their time is nowa­days, and the fact that they made the time to see me meant so much more than the two hours we spent catch­ing up over a great food and con­ver­sa­tion.

poached shrimp salad

Poached shrimp sal­ad, with Niagara nec­tarines, bibb let­tuce (for it’s ten­der tex­ture), endive, lime, and hazel­nut dress­ing. An appe­tiz­er good enough for a main.

Continue read­ing “reduc­tion”…

  1. They got evict­ed due to an unsym­pa­thet­ic land­lord, could­n’t find a suit­able place to stay, and end­ed up putting as many of their pos­ses­sions as pos­si­ble in stor­age and sell­ing the rest. Luckily, one of their friends need­ed a house-sit­ter, and it gave them enough time to find a place. []

going out in style

Cause I want to has been the rea­son for every­thing late­ly.

I start­ed to under­stand how we’re all dying in the Silvia Plath sense of the word, so I decid­ed I might as well go out in style. Vonnegut got it right with his Pall Malls, though I choose not to add tobac­co to the mix.

Magic draft

Steve draws some­thing real­ly good or real­ly bad.

I quite con­sis­tent­ly get my ass kicked at the drafts that Seth hosts, his crew always being made up of vet­er­an play­ers. The advan­tage is that I always walk away hav­ing learned a thing or two, and get­ting enough new cards to build on a con­cept is a nice lit­tle bonus. If some­one told me I’d be spend­ing mon­ey on a col­lec­table card game at this age, I nev­er would have believed it.

Magic has been keep­ing me busy in a good way. It’s nev­er just about play­ing, it’s also about being around friends, and the cama­raderie, and get­ting fat on Steph’s amaz­ing meals. Those are exact­ly the things I need in my life.

pho and spring rolls

#1, beef rare, every time.

The red bean ice is a treat I don’t get often enough.

It was hard bal­anc­ing my time around oth­ers and the time I need­ed alone. I have needs that require the com­pa­ny of cer­tain peo­ple, and when I’m try­ing to meet those needs, that often leaves me feel­ing very over­stim­u­lat­ed. The exhaus­tion had been giv­ing me flare-ups, not to men­tion headaches that dulled the sens­es and elo­quence.

Now I have some breath­ing room, and a chance to do all the lit­tle things I’d been too occu­pied to han­dle, like catch­ing up with peo­ple I haven’t seen in a while, get­ting the car fixed (from $9k worth of hail dam­age), fil­ing my tax­es (from two years ago), chang­ing the strings on my uke to high‑G tun­ing, or just watch­ing a movie. I’m still in night mode though, where I tend to get the most done after 10pm, and I find myself staving off sleep to do just one more thing.

root beer float

Root beer floaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

I want to trav­el some­where, cause it feels like it’s time to step out of my com­fort zone again. I haven’t made enough of my own expe­ri­ences and mem­o­ries for too long. But I’m in too unsta­ble a place right now, and I prob­a­bly will be for at least anoth­er year or so. Ironic that it’s insta­bil­i­ty I crave. It’s left me won­der­ing what I should be explor­ing here.