Posts tagged with "growth"

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.

lessons learned on the path to awakening

Order mat­ters. Timing is impor­tant. It’s help­ful to arrive at the point where things can only get bet­ter, but los­ing every­thing takes time. Making mis­takes is okay. Being unable to cope is okay. Not being ready to say it back is okay. Life is a bal­ance between hold­ing on and let­ting go. Some peo­ple should nev­er have chil­dren. You’re only over some­one when you don’t need to make a con­scious effort to stop think­ing about them. The first step in tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for your needs is com­mu­ni­cat­ing those needs.

cat

Cats are lit­tle bun­dles of non-judg­men­tal, unas­sum­ing, food-con­di­tion­al love.

I need to be with lis­ten­ers more than talk­ers. A day spent writ­ing let­ters that will nev­er be read isn’t a waste. Some peo­ple don’t know how to help, but that does­n’t mean they don’t care. It’s impor­tant to make peace with one’s suf­fer­ing. You nev­er stop grow­ing with the right peo­ple in your life. She nev­er loved me more than the words I wrote. The last thing I want is to be ignored when I open up. It’s okay when friends pri­or­i­tize their kids before me. It’s okay to pri­or­i­tize myself before any­one else. Always be mind­ful of long hair when cud­dling.

Foxhole party

There are peo­ple who love me enough to save my life (and pants are option­al at their par­ties).

The ones with a lit­tle bit of dark­ness to them tend to be more inter­est­ing. If a guy in a suit is cute like me, that means I’m cute like him. Lisa is my third cat and that’s enough for now. I deserve to be hap­py. A bad trip does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean a bad expe­ri­ence. Strength is often qui­et, recep­tive deter­mi­na­tion, rather than chest-thump­ing pushi­ness. Being kind to dif­fi­cult peo­ple is just as impor­tant as being kind to bene­fac­tors and friends; being kind to myself is most impor­tant of all.

stay is a sensitive word

I haven’t been able to come up with a way of explain­ing the absence. I guess I’m still fig­ur­ing out where I stand at this par­tic­u­lar moment, and what it means to keep going. Many days were lost to the flux of ambiver­sion, when all I was try­ing to do was sur­vive the bal­ance of how much space I need­ed with how much com­fort I could only get from oth­ers. Suffice it to say, I’ve learned the impor­tance of tak­ing the time just to feel okay, which has most­ly involved enjoy­ing the games I’ve put off play­ing for so long, spend­ing time with those who make me feel wanted+needed+awesome+loved, and draft­ing as often as pos­si­ble.

girl and cat

My birth­day came some­where in between, a day I got to pick all the shows, eat dirty bird, and nest with the cats on me when they weren’t in the cud­dle train. It made the whole day mine, not because it was some­thing I asked for, but because some­one want­ed to give that to me.

I’m slow­ly let­ting my guard down, let­ting myself share new songs in the dark, so the pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences become a per­ma­nent part of me. Making new mem­o­ries is a step towards sooth­ing my his­to­ry with heart­break. The com­fort I find in our embraces car­ries me through the time we’re apart, but feel­ing safe is still very for­eign. Just touch­ing fin­gers is a vul­ner­a­ble step, and it’s like being on a tightrope every time I put aside my inse­cu­ri­ties to make progress. Thankfully, she has­n’t let me fall yet.

Magic: The Gathering and beer

Most recent­ly, I start­ed work­ing at the busiest com­ic book shop in the city as one of the res­i­dent Magic experts. It’s left me try­ing to find my bal­ance again, even though the job is part-time and nev­er feels like work. The posi­tion most­ly involves run­ning the tour­na­ments, trading/selling/organizing cards, and giv­ing peo­ple game advice; things I already love doing in my spare time. A nice bonus is the fact that a new friend hap­pens to be one of the reg­u­lars at the Modern Constructed tour­ney, and I get to root for him and see how he does between match­es.

Shawn even came in to say hi and give me hugs on my first day. Reminders all around that make me feel worth­while, instead of just believ­ing it. It’s the dif­fer­ence between know­ing some­thing in my head to my heart, a gap I’m start­ing to bridge with help from the right peo­ple.

mother dearest

The last time I saw my mom was on a trip she took to see me in Ottawa, along with a few oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers vis­it­ing from out of the coun­try. I had table ten­nis prac­tice one night, and instead of drop­ping me off, they decid­ed to come watch. So five of us piled into her van, and halfway through the dri­ve, my vision start­ed grow­ing blur­ry. I’d been work­ing full shifts, then enter­tain­ing the guests every night, and my body decid­ed it did­n’t want to con­tin­ue coop­er­at­ing. With the aches get­ting sharp­er in my head, I told her I could­n’t play. She sharply asked why. I explained.

My moth­er has always been an emo­tion­al dri­ver, and on top of that an “emo­tion­al” per­son when she does­n’t get her way. With me rid­ing shot­gun, she decid­ed to make a U‑turn into oncom­ing traf­fic. It was an attempt to go home in a huff, except there are things to con­sid­er when doing this in a vehi­cle, like the fact that every­one around you is also mov­ing in their own giant met­al sledge­ham­mer. When we crossed over the medi­an, I saw an SUV head­ing towards me at full speed, and in that moment, there was only the dis­tinct real­iza­tion that this is how I died. It was some­thing I’d always won­dered, and the sat­is­fac­tion of my curios­i­ty was greater than any sense of fear of what was about to hap­pen1.

But we were saved by the grace and reflex­es of the per­son dri­ving the SUV, who slammed on his/her brakes, and there was no col­li­sion. My mom con­tin­ued speed­ing back home in her mood, like she had­n’t near­ly maimed us all. I knew in that moment she did­n’t care about me or my well being; all she cared about was how she could­n’t show off her son in front of the fam­i­ly, and how that made her look.

I nev­er looked her in the eyes after that. And when she left, I nev­er saw her again. It was already her last chance. Proof that I still did­n’t mean any­thing to her as a per­son, that I was just an orna­ment to her my entire life.

Fast for­ward many years lat­er. A phase where I find myself learn­ing about hate and for­give­ness, how to let go of one and prac­tice the oth­er. I decide to con­tact her again, let­ting her know that I’m not ready to for­give her yet, but I’m open to talk­ing. She asked what there was to for­give, as if she had no idea what she did wrong. I thought it was an odd thing to say; after all, how did she explain why we had­n’t spo­ken in years? I made no assump­tions though, and brought up a few things to refresh her mem­o­ry, the inci­dent above being one exam­ple.

All she could say was that she was going through a dif­fi­cult mar­riage, so I should under­stand why she act­ed the way she did. Then she meek­ly tried to mask her guilt with excus­es about mak­ing sac­ri­fices for me, as if a child’s accep­tance or for­give­ness is some­thing that can be bought and this is why she owes me noth­ing. Through it all, she refused to apol­o­gize, or even acknowl­edge that she ever hurt me. Perhaps say­ing sor­ry would mean admit­ting to her­self that she’s done these hor­ri­ble things to her only child, her fault things got so bad he cut off all ties, and that real­i­ty would be too dif­fi­cult for her to deal with. To this day, she’s in com­plete denial about her role in any of my suf­fer­ing, and she does­n’t even care enough about me to feel bad about it.

I’m learn­ing to accept that my mom would rather give up the chance at rec­on­cil­ing than do some­thing as sim­ple as apol­o­gize, cause it means her sense of pride is more impor­tant to her than her only child. This is exact­ly what makes her a bad par­ent. Separating myself from her so many years lat­er was just as easy as the first time.

If only I was­n’t still deal­ing with the after-effects of her influ­ence; I’m only now learn­ing not to judge myself the way she did the entire time we were in con­tact, how not to hate myself for being less than per­fect, how not to feel worth­less when I don’t have con­stant val­i­da­tion. So many of my demons can be traced back to her. Parents are sup­posed to nur­ture, instill­ing strength and con­fi­dence and sta­bil­i­ty, while help­ing their chil­dren explore a sense of iden­ti­ty. Instead, she dan­gled love and favour and reward in front of me only if I met some ridicu­lous stan­dard in school or played the piano or did exact­ly as she bid. Otherwise, I was a bad per­son, the child she did­n’t want.

It’s been some­what trau­ma­tiz­ing to re-expe­ri­ence these trig­gers again when try­ing to resolve issues I’m deal­ing with now. Sometimes I hate myself for being so bro­ken, but it’s eas­i­er to for­give my mis­takes and accept myself when I real­ize such a tox­ic per­son has had so much influ­ence on my life.

  1. Although maybe that was also cause I knew it was a sit­u­a­tion com­plete­ly out of my con­trol. [↩]

slow plays and hybrid strains

Darren stopped by for a stay on the way to Montreal for his first mul­ti-day hol­dem tour­na­ment. The first and last nights end­ed up being the only ones we had to our­selves. Otherwise, it was a mix of friends and strangers, sati­vas and inci­das, com­ing and going through the house each day. I’m glad he was along for the ride, even though I’m always up far too late when we’re togeth­er, and it’s get­ting hard­er on my body as I get old­er.

Theros draft

Theros draft at my place on release day. I walked away with 1st, but it was off a missed rules call (by me) in my match against Shawn, one that would have made a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence on the tiebreak­er. I’ll always remem­ber the night I won Xenagos and a Thoughtseize (which cov­ers both my entry fee along with Darren’s), but the vic­to­ry will for­ev­er be taint­ed.

It’s feels like I’m a dif­fer­ent per­son, liv­ing a dif­fer­ent life, every time we hang out. The dis­tance between us means the change we expe­ri­ence is always sig­nif­i­cant enough to notice. This time my rela­tion­ships have changed the most cause I’ve start­ed com­part­men­tal­iz­ing peo­ple, appre­ci­at­ing them for their strengths instead of expect­ing every­one to live up to some lofty set of expec­ta­tions. My needs have always been the same, but I’m get­ting bet­ter at mak­ing sure they’re met after final­ly fig­ur­ing out what they are. I’m also bet­ter at read­ing peo­ple, detect­ing under­tone, and under­stand­ing social inter­ac­tions, thanks to Shawn’s exper­tise rub­bing off on me.

In terms of self-improve­ment, I’m try­ing to be more under­stand­ing of the world at large, while reduc­ing my hate and increas­ing my patience. I’ve also start­ed to ana­lyze and resolve the trig­gers that keep me from being the per­son I was meant to be. The strug­gles I used to have only a few years ago seem so ado­les­cent in com­par­i­son to the things I’m work­ing on now. My pri­or­i­ties have matured, or I’ve grown in ways that have made old issues obso­lete.

I’d nev­er have real­ized any of this if Darren had­n’t showed up to pull me so far out of my reg­u­lar life that I lost track of what day it was and the women I’d loved and the feel­ing of cold. I learn as much about myself as I do about him when we’re catch­ing up.