Posts tagged with "self-evaluation"

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.

amour de soi

The last time I saw my ther­a­pist, I said I hope I’d nev­er see him again. That would mean every­thing was okay.

It’s been about two months now. A lot of the heal­ing I’ve been doing late­ly has been about not blam­ing myself for the past. Tragedy and pain are eas­i­er to accept when there’s a rea­son. Often, it was eas­i­est to deal with both if I was that rea­son, even though it would­n’t leave me feel­ing very good about myself.

But some­times there are no answers, noth­ing to point the fin­ger at when things fall apart. Looking back on old plans and impor­tant peo­ple, giv­en the knowl­edge I had at each stage in my life, I real­ize I would have done every­thing exact­ly the same, every sin­gle time. Understanding that has giv­en me a sense of self-respect again, and helped me come to terms a lot of things I found dif­fi­cult to get over.

sprung

I’m rid­ing on so much momen­tum it feels like I’ll nev­er come to a stop. This is a dras­tic change from only a short while ago, and I can attribute it most­ly to the chances I’ve had to apply the lessons I’ve learned. Being able to prove to myself that I still have things to dis­cov­er, that I’m still refin­ing myself as a per­son, has left me feel­ing con­fi­dent and hum­ble late­ly.

420 protest on Parliament Hill

April 20th is the one day I wish I owned a BeaverTails stand. Protesting does­n’t get any more peace­ful than this.

Making peace with myself used to be a strug­gle. Now that I’m actu­al­ly hap­py with who I am, I real­ize how low a bar that used to be. I’ve been through stretch­es like this before though and they’ve nev­er last­ed, so I’m still approach­ing it all with cau­tious opti­mism. At least now I’m wise enough to know that hap­pi­ness is some­thing that needs to be worked at con­sis­tent­ly, in the lit­tle ways, and I’m strong enough to keep it going.

Jon-Kabat Zinn has been help­ing me on this path too. I’ve been lis­ten­ing to a series of his mind­ful med­i­ta­tion exer­cis­es, and I car­ry a sense of calm through the day when­ev­er I hear his voice. Every now and then he offers gen­tle advice on doing this kind of work, like how impor­tant it is to give your­self per­mis­sion to feel what­ev­er it is you’re feel­ing, and I’ve been dis­cov­er­ing that so much of it has rel­e­vance in oth­er parts of my life.

moulting

Holy shit how did this song find me in the mid­dle of blan­ket­ing white snow­fall, instead of sum­mer? I’ll take it either way1. I’ve need­ed a new addic­tion after too many maudlin jazz albums, too often fuelled by hard-liv­ing and a woman. This means I’m ready for a taste of warm weath­er. I miss the wind through my clothes and the smell of girls’ skin when it’s been touched by sweat and sun­light.

cat close-up

Guizmo.

I’m in the process of sim­pli­fy­ing, which has meant fig­ur­ing out my pri­or­i­ties, and tru­ly let­ting go of the things I don’t need, whether it’s a bad habit or rela­tion­ship or thought. Maybe this is why I haven’t been feel­ing my age; it feels like I’m con­stant­ly start­ing over in var­i­ous parts of my life.

This has­n’t made writ­ing any eas­i­er. I’m always wait­ing for a feel­ing to last, but it tends to pass before I have a chance to get it down on paper. Maybe the insta­bil­i­ty is what I should be writ­ing about. Not about who I am, but how much things are chang­ing.

Audra recent­ly wrote about how frus­trat­ing it is when she can’t get into a state of per­ma­nence. She said it par­tic­u­lar­ly well here: “I know it is not real­is­tic for all progress to be lin­ear, or for things to be able to become con­stant once they become good. But I sure do day­dream about it.” It makes me feel so val­i­dat­ed when some­one is able to put into words the things I’ve been going through with­out hav­ing talked about it with them.

Chinese dinner

My dad asks if I want to get a pic­ture before we start, Lisa says he must know me very well.

In between: Chris final­ly kiss­es Angie. It’s a good­night kiss while her creepy col­league is asleep in the same room, yet some­how man­ages to be the sweet­est first-kiss ever. I start to grow my hair out and wear it down, out of bore­dom. People say it fits me. Byron brings me his toys so I’ll toss them again, and I begin to won­der who’s train­ing who. Lisa meets my dad. We final­ly watch True Romance and Gary Oldman becomes my new favourite actor. I rack up over 150 hours played in Awesomenauts this year, and I’ve made online friends (it’s weird). Assad los­es anoth­er gen­er­al to the rebels, there’s still no end in sight after three years of fight­ing, and oth­er­wise I remain bliss­ful­ly igno­rant to the world.

  1. Also comes in a high­ly enter­tain­ing music video ver­sion. [↩]