Posts tagged with "friendship"

Lisa-time, me-time

Our reunion end­ed on a cliffhang­er, where *Skins SPOILERS* Tony gets hit by a bus, Sid finds Cassie, and Angie breaks up with Chris. But fin­ish­ing a sea­son means we have the chance to start some­thing new (or resume anoth­er show), and we tend to alter­nate between com­e­dy and dra­ma, sweet and savoury, while sur­round­ed by kit­ties in the lit­tle nest we make for our­selves.

girl and cat

Cats warm their balls in your hair and make eye con­tact to show dom­i­nance.

I did­n’t real­ize how hard it was to go a whole month with­out her until I saw her again. The time we’ve spent over the last few years has made me com­fort­able enough to let my guard down, and it’s good to be remind­ed that we’re capa­ble of such things every now and then, espe­cial­ly when still deal­ing with trust issues and emo­tion­al trau­ma.

The things we share are often small and sim­ple, as they’re most­ly about plea­sures and we’re eas­i­ly pleased. Actually, it’s more like she’s eas­i­ly pleased, while I’m pleased when oth­ers are hap­py. It’s a dynam­ic that works real­ly well for both of us. I love myself when I’m with her cause she appre­ci­ates me in all the intri­cate ways I want to be appre­ci­at­ed, and that gives me a lot of the val­i­da­tion I need in my life right now.

thousand-yard stare

Heather G left a pack­age out­side my door after try­ing to make plans and get­ting what must have been a dis­tant answer. Organic herbal tea, 80% dark choco­late truf­fles, and not only sushi from my favourite restau­rant, but my favourite kinds too. She knows me extra­or­di­nar­i­ly well for a per­son I bare­ly get a chance to see, and she cares so much even though she has no idea what I’m going through. It’s helped me real­ize that some peo­ple are bet­ter at being what you need, that you can’t expect every per­son to fill all the roles in your life. I’m also try­ing to fig­ure out what those needs are right now, and how to express those needs to oth­ers (or how hard it is for me to express them).

It always takes me a while to recov­er from these kinds of weeks, and this one was par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult. When the cops showed up, I pulled the whole Drexl Spivey thing and ate my Chinese, car­ried on like I ain’t got a care in the world. I know what they need to hear, espe­cial­ly the sec­ond time around, and what’s more, I know that noth­ing they say will make a dif­fer­ence.

Everything has left me feel­ing numb and over­stim­u­lat­ed. Almost all the hours are spent in Far Cry 3 with a bolt-action sup­pressed Z93, wast­ing time and lives in appro­pri­ate por­tions. Losing myself in that world and not get­ting any­thing pro­duc­tive done at all was an easy deci­sion. I know I deserve to be okay for a lit­tle while, and we all deal with our dam­age in dif­fer­ent ways.

the distances we travel, and yet how far we've still to sail

It’s all a bit of a blur now, espe­cial­ly since we agree it feels like it’s been a year since my respon­si­bil­i­ties as a son and a cousin and a friend in Toronto. I do remem­ber try­ing to bal­ance the caf­feine — so I could be clear-head­ed and enjoy­ing myself — with the insom­nia that comes from hav­ing so much ener­gy every night. Also, these acts of guer­ril­la hap­pi­ness where mes­sages of hope were expressed through posters and spray paint. It would appear that van­dal­ism cross­es over into art only in cities with a sky­line worth men­tion­ing.

We end­ed up at the Ontario Science Centre twice, once as nerds and again as wed­ding guests, which worked out cause the only exhib­it we did­n’t get a chance to see one day end­ed up being the only exhib­it open to us dur­ing the recep­tion. The high­light is always the plan­e­tar­i­um though, in all it’s bean-bag, time-trav­el­ing glo­ry, the expe­ri­ence itself worth the price of admis­sion. With the excep­tion of a poor fac­sim­i­le of drag­on’s beard can­dy, every­thing worked out.

Continue read­ing “the dis­tances we trav­el, and yet how far we’ve still to sail”…

a heavier dose

I’ve been try­ing to stay vocal about my needs, lest I fall back into old life traps and defence mech­a­nisms. It means I’m still apply­ing lessons learned from last year, still try­ing to be open even if it means being vul­ner­a­ble.

As far as I can tell, this has been work­ing in my favour. Otherwise, Seth would­n’t be com­ing over on Saturday to teach me how to play the acoustic ver­sion of Sean Rowe’s Jonathan, one of those songs I’ve always want­ed to learn before I die.

As a side-effect, it’s been a strug­gle to bal­ance my rela­tion­ship needs with over­stim­u­la­tion. The oth­er night we smoked an apéri­tif in the car before spend­ing three hours gorg­ing our­selves on all-you-can-eat sushi, learn­ing that the small but sig­nif­i­cant priv­i­leges of our class come in plates of bite-sized fat­ty pro­tein made to order. Then we watched the entire first sea­son of Tim and Eric, Awesome Show! Great Job, and played Magic until 4:30 in the morn­ing.

It left me burnt out and I must have lost two days, yet it still feels like I don’t have enough nights like that, shar­ing real moments with peo­ple who don’t per­pet­u­al­ly have some­where else to be or some­one else to see. I need more of those times in my every­day life, not just in the days marked on my cal­en­dar.

creature comforts

Thank you win­ter for mak­ing my cats super cud­dly and slow-falling snow and the chance to wear new cardi­gan-dress shirt com­bos. You are total­ly worth the has­sle of hav­ing to warm up my car (for now). It’s because of you that I learn how trust is found in the gen­tle coo­ing of girls who fall asleep on your shoul­der.

Mornings are spent upstairs in the break­fast nook, now that I have work I can get done on my MacBook Pro. To be bathed in the cool sun­light reflect­ing off the snow was a change of pace I nev­er knew I need­ed.

birthday brunch

Jesse’s birth­day brunch at the Lieutenant’s Pump.

I’ve been liv­ing with­out any sort of sched­ule. It’s nice to be able to make my own hours cause I’m far more pro­duc­tive at night, but it also makes my life free of the struc­ture that keeps me paced and bal­anced. The only rea­son I have to keep any sort of reg­u­lar sleep­ing pat­tern is so I can be awake when my friends are.

Still, I tend to stay up past the point of exhaus­tion so I don’t get stuck in an end­less cycle of thought when try­ing to fall asleep. Otherwise, the cider always helps.

sneaky cat

Soon, hunger will over­take the fear of pun­ish­ment.

It’s one of those weeks where I’m feel­ing antsy cause I don’t know when I’m see­ing Lisa next and I haven’t heard from her in a while. I don’t pur­sue the issue cause she has her own life, and I have so much to do that it works out any­way, but that does­n’t make me miss her any less. Our time is spe­cial cause there are so many things I share only with her, our exclu­sive lit­tle club for Breaking Bad, cat walks, and super hot­ties.

It feels like I only talk about my friends late­ly. Probably cause that’s what my life is filled with now. They’re the good that’s come out of the bad, the ones who picked up the ball when oth­ers let it drop. They val­i­date me and notice what I wear and lis­ten to me cause they believe what I’m say­ing mat­ters. And at the very least, they’re a chance for me to care about some­one else.