Bright Lights

Angels of the get through

2020-06-03T06:30:00.000-04:00

This year has been the hardest of your whole life.

So hard you cannot see a future, most days.
The pain is bigger than anything else.
Takes up the whole horizon, no matter where you are.
You feel unsafe you feel unsaved.
Your past so present you can feel your baby teeth.
Sitting on the couch, you swear your feet don't reach the floor.
You keep remembering the first time you saw a bird's nest.
Held together by an old shoe lace and scraps of a plastic bag
You knew the home of a person could be built like that
A lot of things you'd rather throw away
You keep worrying you're taking up too much space.
I wish you'd let yourself be the milky way
Remember when I told you I was gonna become a full time poet
And you paid my rent for three years?
Best Friend,
Angel of the get through.
All living is storm chasing.
Every good heart has lost its roof.
Let all the walls collapse at your feet,
Scream timber when they ask you how you are.
Fine is the suckiest word. It is the opposite of HERE
Here is the only place left on the map
Here is where you learn laughter can go extinct
And come back
I am already building the museum
For every treasure you unearth in the rock bottom
Holy vulnerable cliff
God mason, heart heavier than all the bricks
Say this is what the pain made of you
An open open open road
An avalanche of feel it all
Don't ever let anyone tell you, you are too much
Or it has been too long
Whatever keeps the stutterer from stuttering when he sings a song
You are made of that thing
That unbreakable note
That photography of you at five years old,
The year you ran away from school,
Because you wanted to go home.
You are almost there.
You are the same compass you have always been
You are the same friend who never left my side
During my worst year
You caught every tantrum I threw
With your bare hands
Chucked it back at the blood moon
Said its okay, everyone's survival looks a little bit like death
I wrote a poem called "say yes" while I was cursing you
For not letting me go.
Best friend, this is what we do.
We gather each other up.
We say, the cup is half
Yours and half mine.
We say alone is the last place you will ever be.
We say tonight lets stay inside reading pema chodron
While everyone else is out on the town
Pema will say "only to the extent we
Expose ourselves over and over to annihilation
Can that which is indestructible in us be found"
You'll say Pema is so wise.
And I'll say yes she is, and we are too.

Angels of the get through. We are too.

Take everything I think I know, every answer is a grave

Now the questions are the rain I walk through to find my way to God

And my only God is faith that there is comfort here

And who is hurting might hurt less than they did before

What else are these coins and all these wells for?

If not to wish the grief asleep in the lap of someone else's grief

Til grief comes not knowing if it will come again

Andrea Gibson

Forest fires are both necessary and dangerous.

2020-06-02T23:25:00.000-04:00

I have this swirling of emotions in the pit of my stomach.
It rises up through my lungs to my throat and out my eyes.
I used to think if I let enough of the tears fall it would eventually put out the flames.

I was always wrong though.

Because I thought I was a forest fire.
Encouraging regrowth.
Removing the weak.
Allowing more sunlight.

...All while being contained.

Forest fires are synonymous with disaster.
And although at times I can be an absolute mess of a disaster
I cannot be contained, controlled, or conned.

I realized this when I tasted that my tears were made from salt water.
I realized this as I rode through my waves of grief and thrill within moments of each other.
The undertow brings me to my depths where I can hold my breath for just long enough.
It's the storm in me.

What do you call a storm who didn’t know she had permission to rage?
Do you call her lost or do you call her home?

Remember that I want to be loved as deep as the ocean, but remember that I am like the ocean.

I can slip through your fingers, but manage to hold up an army of ships.

Kiss me, hold me, love me, but tell me if you're not up for it.

I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.

-Warsan Shire.

I'm never giving up but I'm always letting go.

2020-05-30T10:17:00.002-04:00

I know this is pivotal.

I know this is temporary.

I know all this pain transmutes into transformation.

I know this transformation is bringing forth the next level of Marley that is so necessary.

So many people need and love me. So few know how much pain I am in.

I feel selfish to admit this pain because I feel like I'm supposed to be stronger than this and that I should be moving through this grief faster.

I'm committed to doing this the right way. To really clear it all out and not just find a bandaid or a distraction to fill the void.

I'm not stuffing the mess under the bed. I'm looking at every piece of the clutter, examining it for what it is.

Some days it feels like major surgery.

Every day it feels like I break myself open to dig out the rot with my own hands.

I'm never giving up but I'm always letting go.

I have books upon books upon books. They tell me who I am and what I'm doing and prescribe a solution.

I suppose I shouldn't expect a magic pill.

Anything worth having does not come easy.

This transformation is going to be huge.

And damn it, I'm going to earn it.

Just because you’re vulnerable doesn’t mean you are healed

2020-04-21T18:28:00.000-04:00

Last time I sat in my therapist's office I poured my heart out and asked
"so... am I okay?"

He confirmed “yes, you’re in a period of self discovery. This isn’t grief”

I sat in my therapist’s office today.

Poured my heart out.

Before I could ask, he said:
“This one is grief.”

It felt like a diagnosis.

One I felt all the symptoms of but was in denial.

There’s this thing about vulnerability I hadn’t encountered yet.

My career grows as I evolve.

Relationships open up when I lay it all out on the table.

I adapted to this.

But life doesn’t always reward vulnerability.

We know there is strength in exposing our biggest flaws.
We also know there is opportunity for rejection and hurt.

I always faced that head on, for the thrill, for the growth...

It feels good until it doesn’t.

It’s when the expectation of opportunity becomes an attachment to outcome that vulnerability turns into a double edged sword.

You can appear to have all the cards on the table and unconsciously forget about the ace of spades hiding in your back pocket.

You can do all the therapy, read all the books, have all the personal development courses out there... and you still get knocked down by the proverbial punching bag that swings back after you thought you fired your last hit.

Just because you’re vulnerable doesn’t mean you are healed.

What do I do, doc? Give it to me straight.

Integration.

A fancy word for sit down, be humble, and feel out your $@!&.

But you can’t tell a brick wall those things. They're like me, they just stand there and don’t listen.

Until...

Until it comes knocking at your door with a sledgehammer and you just have no choice but to witness the entire roadmap that brought you to your knees today.

I don't know where its bringing me but despite the pain I am eager for it.
Everyone can walk farther on their kneecaps than they can on their feet.

Replaying conversations running round in my mind.

2020-03-01T21:28:00.001-05:00

I'm so happy you're here

"And here" - he would say, pointing to the left side of my chest.

It's the same place I would later point to when the therapist asked "where does it hurt?"

Thank you to the one who let her get away

2020-02-29T20:59:00.000-05:00

I Don't Intend To Survive, I Want To Live

2019-12-11T03:17:00.000-05:00

You can never connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking back.

I have so many ideas and things I want to do. I never stop asking the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?". I love asking kids this and hearing their ideas. By the end of my life I hope I tried everything I wanted to try. Maybe I'll be an expert at some things, maybe I won't. I hope I get to experience all the adventures of trying new things and learning a new trade.

I love that feeling when you stop and reflect on your life and really deeply realize how far you've come. A year ago, could you have even imagined you'd be where you are at this moment? And isn't it crazy to think that you can't even begin to predict what a year from now will look like. We have ideas and goals and dreams and on the journey towards our pursuits the universe throws curve balls and forks in the road that bring us invaluable life lessons and experiences.

I look back at the moments in my life I felt so much frustration from the pressure I put on myself to be doing more, working more, being more. The self-inflicted stress and worry I put on myself in the past all seems so pointless now because everything fell into place naturally anyway, even if it isn't exactly how I had planned it... I need to remember that when I put that same pressure on myself today.

Keep learning, keep moving, keep growing. There is no race and there is no timeline saying you're supposed to be at this point by this time. Keep doing what's fun and what makes you happy. Then ten years will have gone by and you still might not have figured out what you want to do when you grow up. You might be 50 and you still have lots of growing up time.

We easily get caught up in bills and obligations. What we should do versus what we would absolutely love to do. In the list of careers I have had the wonderful opportunities to be a part of, I have really learned what it is to decide from your heart what will fulfill you rather than from your brain (and likely your budget) what will allow you to survive or just get by.

Our brains need to take the back seat and let our hearts lead the way.

How To Forgive Without Hearing "I'm Sorry"

2019-12-06T22:20:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to write about this for a while. The therapeutic process of writing helps me to understand the things I have struggled with; forgiveness without needing apologies.

Perhaps someone has hurt you. Perhaps this person has come into your life and somewhere along the way ripped your heart out of your chest. Pulled the pin from a grenade and walked away scot-free, leaving you to pick up the pieces and clean up the rubble.

When you're deeply hurt, it's hard to let go. I wish it were like a lightswitch I could just turn on and off to release the pain. Why hold on to that? Where do we put it down?

Think of how it feels physically when you hold on to hurt and resentment. Where in your body do you feel it? Your stomach? Your chest? Your throat?

I often feel that anxiety in a combination of those areas, and I notice that my emotional issues manifest physically - most of the time in the throat. Coughs, soreness, bronchitis, strep... The throat is the chimney to the heart. Sometimes my words, feelings, and emotions just get stuck in there.

Forgiveness does not mean that you condone their behavior. It does not mean that what they did was okay. It does not mean you have to have a relationship. Although a sincere apology means you have been acknowledged, it won't always be there. That's their truth and their karma to deal with. It doesn't make them wrong, it doesn't make you right. Forgiveness is an exercise in self-love, allowing you to heal and move on.

Also know that forgiveness does not happen over night.
Love yourself enough to release this struggle.

You are brave. You are courageous. You are loved and adored. Most importantly by yourself.

All Good Things Are Wild And Free

2019-12-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

If I ever push you away, I don't really mean to. When I tell you I don't want to talk about it, I do, and I'm just looking for the right words. Give me a minute and if I can tell you, I will. I try to be a struggling mix of real and perfect at the same time. When I get really quiet sometimes it is because I have too much to say, I have thought of too many things to tell you at once and I don't know what to say first. I get immaturely jealous of anyone who gets to see you on a daily basis. I miss you really easy but I also like that we can be

a p a r t

and we are both okay. Space is good too. I love the way we love some of the same things. And I love how we love entirely different things. My head is a complicated pile of thoughts, and fears, and cravings, and dreams, and this tangled up nostalgia for the past and somehow for the future. I'm flawed and I'm human, I'm broken and I'm trying. I'm one person and have two hands and I have one heart and I love you and I'm so glad you are here.

-Unknown

I am both war and woman and you cannot stop me

2019-12-03T20:10:00.000-05:00

My Goal For Today Is To Have A Really Nice Day

2019-12-03T04:59:00.000-05:00

“Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness. It takes strength to acknowledge our anger, and sometimes more strength yet to curb the aggressive urges anger may bring and to channel them into nonviolent outlets. It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and our anger flow in tears when they need to. It takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it.”
- Fred Rogers

I used to avoid sleeping. I'd stay up late and wake up early. I'd live on very few hours at a time and it didn't bother me much. I'd laugh when someone would ask "Do you, like, never sleep?". I've never been a coffee drinker but I always had more than enough energy. In the last month, I've been sleeping as much I can to help me catch up with myself and process.

I'm human. I get mad. I feel emotions. I have a temper. And an ego. Some days I come down with sadness. Some days my on/off switch is a little blurred. I get kind of nostalgic when I think about sad moments and how they've contributed to my life. Wounds make us, us.

Some days it feels like I'm treading water. Feeling empowered that I'm doing this on my own but having my moments where I try to forget that it was my choice to swim away from shore and let go of all my floatation devices. It can get scary swimming in a big open ocean on your own when you can't always see what's beneath the surface. I've seen fairytales that didn't live happily ever after, and had more life in my years than my biological age will display. I've seen that the sun still rises and our hearts keep beating and we keep breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. You will never find your heaven if you stay in your hell and those thorns will never turn to flowers if you stay out of the sunlight.

I am learning to be who I am without having to explain it to anybody.

People are who they are and do what they do whether or not you like it or agree with them. We each have lessons to learn. We each take a different path to our lessons. There are times when someone's path will cross your path and cause you to stumble or fall. That does not make them wrong. That does not make you right

Are you as close to giving up as I’d be?

2019-12-01T01:55:00.000-05:00

I used to wonder if my amount of daydreaming affects my sleep at night. Most people can't remember their dreams at night when they are asleep, but they can always remember their dreams during the day when they are awake. If you have recurring dreams when you are asleep at night it is said that your subconscious is trying to tell you something. If you have recurring dreams when you are awake during the day, it can be a wonderful thing because you're setting out goals and daydreaming emits positive energies for your life.

I will never stop day dreaming. The amount of time I spend day dreaming never increases or decreases, just the topics and the ideas my head conjures up changes.

I'm good at keeping people awake. Not always in a way they enjoy. I get so chatty right before bedtime. This was a habit as a child as well. I'd instigate long intelligent debates and conversations. I've had the light turned off and the door closed on me more than once. What does this mean? I love to sleep, but getting there is a battle.

Too Bad Love Is An Etch-A-Sketch. Good Thing Love Is An Etch-A-Sketch

2019-11-30T04:23:00.000-05:00

“We were the see-through. We were the glass doors everyone kept running into,
trying to learn how to shatter without hurting someone...”

Tell me about losing your best friend. Tell me about letting someone go chase their dreams and how everything changed when they came back. Tell me about long distance heartaches. About calculating your timezones for those bedtime phone calls. Tell me about waking up to their ringtone at 3 or 4am. The best kind of wake-up call. Didn't matter how tired you were the next day.

Tell me about "You don't know what you've got till it's gone". Tell me about making mistakes you don't regret. Tell me about sharing your truth and revealing weaknesses and the vulnerability that comes with losing the person you lost your secrets to. Tell me how you did this to yourself. And how these signs that appear out of the blue all over your life make it easier and harder at the same time. That being 7 digits, and 8 kilometers, and 10 minutes away makes you ache.

"Why am I still here?"

"You're not. You're a ghost."

"I thought I left."

"You did. You're always leaving."

"Where am I now?"

"Always here. Never here again."

Hold Me While You Wait - Lewis Capaldi

The heart forms long before the ribcage

2019-11-29T10:24:00.000-05:00

I wake up shaking with cold, throw my hair up into a hummingbird's nest and give myself a deadline to get out the door. This is my morning routine. Except for today. Today I made it through steps one and two, and then surrendered to the embrace of my king sized bed and pillow cased in one of my Mom's old sweaters.

I tried to meditate this cold away. Next time I will bring a harmonica. If I'm going to breathe this world deep I'm going to get a song out of it.

I'm now going to sleep for a million years and wake up tomorrow.

Last night I dreamed I was a rainstorm that was terrified to let loose all the rain that I had carried for so long because if I did not have it, then maybe, just maybe I did not exist. It was then I realized that if I do not let it all fall then I would not be a rainstorm at all.

Reverse Parades

2019-11-28T06:48:00.000-05:00

I am honoring myself.

I am not attending obligations. I am letting the phone ring. I am letting calls go to voicemail. I am responding to messages if and when I feel like it. I am calling in 'sad' to work when I need to be with family. After my last journey through grief I jumped right back into regular life before I was ready for it and it was pretty detrimental for my well-being.

I broke a mirror yesterday. There is a crack in my reflection. There is a long line right down the centre of my own image. We are meant to look deeper at ourselves when we are broken. We need to be brutally honest and confront what we feel, even if it hurts. We need to accept what is, even if we don't like it. We need to display what we are made of, even if we are still figuring it out.

There are many arms outstretched. There are many hearts being offered to fill the piece of mine that is missing. There are tears being shed on my behalf when I've cried out all of my own. My heart is beating in a new rhythm that I am still learning.

In the moment of my breakdown, when it all sunk in, I learned who I wanted to be and how I would become her.
Something in me broke, but not in a bad way. It released things that were being blocked.
It felt like a broken rib, and it hurts with every breath taken until it heals.

In the last month it felt like part of my heart was taken from my chest, reversed, flipped inside out and shown to me. This is what it looks like. This is what you're doing. This is why it hurts.
And then shoved it back in to say "Now deal with it, and have nice day!"

And I have been.

Don’t do anything halfway, unless you’re willing to be half happy.

2019-11-27T02:36:00.000-05:00

Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters.
If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but lose you.
Haruki Murakami

I want to come from love. And I want to do it all the time. I can’t expect it to always look the same though. I remember a friend saying that God loved his daughter enough to say no – something He had a hard time with. Sometimes love says, “no this doesn’t work for me.” Sometimes love walks away, because staying would conflict with loving and being true to who we are. And, staying would make it very difficult to come from love.

Don’t do anything halfway, unless you’re willing to be half happy.

Tired Of Being So Exhausted

2019-11-26T13:47:00.000-05:00

Rolling with the punches: To move away from an opponent's blows to lessen the force of impact.

"When it happens... you find out who your real friends are..."

I've always been skeptical about that phrase, wondering if the reality truly is about abandonment, or if it is a misinterpretation of intentions.

We give love the way we want to receive it.

During times of chaos or despair, our well-meaning friends may not know how to help pick up the pieces. They may fear they'll cut themselves in the process.

Or maybe they're too busy picking up their own, wondering why you aren't on your knees with them.

How could you be? Can't they see you're already scraped up and bruised with your own shattered glass? And dang it, the dustpan keeps spilling. While you're sweeping from all angles, you're not realizing their dustpan is overflowing. It's not abandonment, its unawareness.

Or maybe... they're not purposely choosing to leave you in solitude on your darkest days. Maybe they're just standing on the other side holding the flashlight. Waiting for you to decide to step through that door and help light the way.

There’s a difference between being abandoned by a shitty person and having boundaries set by a person who loves you and wants the best for you.

There's a difference between rolling with the punches and being a punching bag.

There's a difference between loving with attachment and loving from a distance.
The amount of love can still be equal. The perception is up to the beholder.

I Love Me, I Am Enough, And That's Always Enough.

2019-11-25T19:31:00.000-05:00

The heart is a muscle, just like any other. And the best exercise you can do for it is called picking yourself up off the floor

Every time a loved one has to go away, I'm left to flex that muscle that aches when I miss them. Just like any other muscle that can rip and tear and grow back stronger. I imagine it growing stronger when they leave, so that it hurts less the next time. Each time they go, my heart aches a bit less, my stomach doesn't flip flop so much, and the tears slowly diminish. But, as I dry the tears from my misty eyes, I am grateful to have loved so much that it makes goodbyes feel so hard. I'm grateful for how far I've come to get here. To let love in, in the first place.

I first discovered a similar feeling at sixteen. It yearned for attention and approval. My first boyfriend. Teenage romance. It was puppy love, always wanting to be together, but not really knowing what love was yet. When that relationship ultimately ended, as most young loves do, it transformed into a self-love struggle. When your heart breaks for the first time as a teenager, and you experience new things like rumours swirling, mean girls scheming... finding a safe place to put your heart is a challenge. You feel a little more skeptical of who you can trust. You wonder if your past experiences will manifest again in the future. You learn how to play the games. This is just the beginning.

It took many years of playing the games for me to realize that what I was doing was looking for my self-worth in something other than my authentic self. I looked for my self-worth in who I was connected to, where I lived, or what I did for a living. This was the hardest discovery of them all. I relapsed many times... into bad relationships, unhealthy habits, negative thinking, attachment to outcome. A desperate need for connection, attention, progress, from relationships or work. I was so focused on what I looked like to the outside world based on who and what I had, that I didn't give myself the opportunity to look into my own heart to find what would truly feed my spirit.

Sometimes the walls you've put up, the shell you've contained yourself in, the barriers you hide behind... need to crack. As Leonard Cohen would say: that's how the light gets in. The harder you try to hide, the more walls you try to put up; it creates pressure that eventually has to come down. Whether it comes down gracefully when you choose to let go, or with a big crash when you can't take the weight anymore. The light gets in. What's ahead is foggy but there's a light shining on the pieces you need to pick up. You can choose if you do the hard soul-aching work to pick them up or if you want to step on the broken glass. You decide which pain you prefer to endure.

Before now, that muscle was based on attachment to others. If the guy called: I am worthy. If I got the job/opportunity: I am important. I was always missing the parts of myself I was not self aware enough to see. The aches I felt when relationships or opportunities didn't work out was because I was missing the part of me that says "I love me, I am enough, and that's always enough"

I realized my mental and emotional wellbeing requires just as much effort as the effort to keep our physical body healthy. We do our best to eat balanced meals, sleep well, and exercise regularly. We can see the physical progress in our body as it becomes stronger and more energetic. What do you need to do for your mental and emotional well being?

For me... it's writing. Journalling. This is my me-time. When I was lost and going through this self-love, self discovery phase I found this journalling book that helped my soul to open up. I'm starting the 40 day challenge again and will write about it through my next phase of life challenges. Self-discovery is the scariest but also most intriguing experiences to go through. You dig up things you forgot about. You unpack baggage you didn't realize you had. My physical body fought me on it (read about that here). I was on bed-rest for a while as my body reacted to the emotional struggles I faced. Carrying on in a sinking ship is not bravery. Pick up the pieces or step on them. Either way it's going to hurt. It's never easy but always worth it.

Round 2 of opening up my soul: here we go.

Please. Live. Now.

2019-11-24T18:10:00.000-05:00

“Your hand can seize today, but not tomorrow; and thoughts of your tomorrow are nothing but desire. Don’t waste this breath, if your heart isn’t crazy, since "the rest of your life" won’t last forever.”
― Omar Khayyám, Quatrains - Ballades

When I was 16 I went through a phase where I was overwhelmed with the fear that I was going to die. Inevitably, we all will, and it's a strange thought to think that everyone we know will one day not be here. I don't know where the fear came from. I just couldn't see life past 17 and I feared that life would be cut short.

I think of people I knew who died tragically and young. Anything other than passing naturally at an old age seems tragic. They all had plans, hopes, and dreams of the future. Things that they just never got to do or be. People they never got to meet and love... People who never got to meet and love them. For reasons we don't know, or don't remember agreeing to in our soul contracts, life is cut short and those future dreams are never experienced.

I've been thinking about it again lately. I've been yearning for more time and I don't know why it feels like something I'm aching for. I've always wished I had the superpower to stop and start time, like an episode of the Twilight Zone where he presses a button on his pocketwatch to freeze everything but himself. I'd make it different that I could pick and choose who gets frozen in time with me so maybe my mom and I could shop without the crowds. I could sleep in and go to the gym without it taking extra time out of my day. I could travel instantly without any real time passing, I'd never be late for anything, and I'd always be prepared.

When I was a child and people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up my answer was always "a mommy". I want love and travel and adventures and comfort but most of all to complete this lifetime I want the experience of motherhood. To love someone that came from you, to be completely obsessed with them and their quality of life and safety and happiness.

I want every communication, encounter, and experience to be left a loving one. We hear too many stories of the last words said being less than positive. When I was in trouble as a child I'd often ask for reassurance: "when you're mad at me, you still love me right?"

I am blessed with such wonderful friends and family and relationships. I wish I could see them all the time and for everyone to know how much they mean to me. Again, if I could freeze time I would have enough time and freedom to do anything and be anywhere with anyone. There would never be any juggling schedules.

Please don't waste any time to be loving, to allow love, accept love, and always the right kind of love. Please don't waste time to apologize, and admit when you've been wrong or hurtful whether intentional or not. Please don't let life get in the way of being with the people you love most. No one ever said on their deathbed that they wished they were busier and spent less time with family.

I want an infinite amount of Christmas mornings with my family, and summer days, and vacations at the beach, and Disney adventures, and dinners with friends.
I don't want it to ever end.

The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.
-Louis E. Boone

Take Me Back To The Night We Met

2019-11-24T03:05:00.000-05:00

I had all and then most of you

Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met
I don't know what I'm supposed to do
Haunted by the ghost of you
Take me back to the night we met

I am studying how the best romantic love scenes play out from back stage rather than from the front row.

My observations are specifically towards those heart wrenching, beautifully tragic, lovely stories. How two people found each other, grew together, grew apart, and the Chekhov’s Gun-style clues left on stage to indicate how the finale will play out.

Set the stage: Two strangers. Girl is broken. Boy is broken. The two are destined to fall in love with each other.

Meet cute does not mean love at first sight. It sets the roadmap by setting up a promise of conflict. Early on, we see the evident obstacle to overcome.

Their worlds collide.

They are both coupled with partners who left them confused and convinced they were unlovable. They see something in each other. Yet turn away, writing it off. Only to come back together after the removal of and healing from their respective partners.

The said partners of boy and girl are not the antagonists in this story.

The broken strangers are. They are also the protagonists of the story.

They are the underdogs, they are the heroes, and they are the villains. All in one story.

They are the leading characters, and they are the supporting acts.

They will fall deeply. They will put each other on pedestals. They will make sacrifices for each other. They will sabotage. They will scream and cry. They will win. They will celebrate. They will kiss and make up and make promises.

At first, this may appear to be a typical love story ending. But we leave the audience with nothing that they wanted but everything they asked for. Intrigue. Spontaneity. An emotional spectacle to be remembered.

At intermission, our two characters exit stage left no less broken than they entered.

The dramatic, romantic, comedic love story in between is what wins all the applause and standing ovations and roses thrown upon the stage after the curtain comes down.

Post-intermission plot twist.

Our plot is heading towards its conclusion. The musical composition dies down. From the very edge of every seat in the entire theatre, our oxytocin-craving audience is left with… a false ending. A cliffhanger. A loose end.

Some stay in their seats, waiting for the unresolved plot points to be answered. They are left with a dopamine-induced reeling from the attachment.

Lights up. Curtain close. Janitors enter.

The leading male and female are left to their dressing rooms alone to look themselves in the mirror, after laying it all out in their final performance. Wiping makeup off under the lights - or whatever is left of it from their tear-streaked faces.

Their contract fulfilled.

Tomorrow, a cold reading with a brand new script.

Consequences - Camila Cabello

Good Morning, Life. It's Good To Be Awake

2015-05-19T14:04:00.002-04:00

“This is an apology letter to the both of us
for how long it took me to let things go.
It was not my intention to make such a
production of the emptiness between us
playing tuba on the tombstone of a soprano
to try and keep some dead singer’s perspective alive.
It’s just that I coulda swore you had sung me a love song back there
and that you meant it
but I guess sometimes people just chew with their mouth open
so I ate ear plugs alive with my throat
hoping they’d get lodged deep enough inside the empty spots
that I wouldn’t have to hear you leaving”
-Buddy Wakefield

In 2010 I sat in a lecture hall at the University of Toronto, hearing a renowned spiritual teacher give a presentation. He spoke through spirit and answered questions by the audience. Without my hand raised, he chose me. He said he could sense many guides around me and knew I had a question. At this time I did not have any close family or friends on the other side to ask him about, but I did have a deep wondering about my life. I struggled with anxiety and a deep sense of impending something that I couldn't define. I felt that something was shifting in me or that something was about to happen. I did not know how to put it into words. I asked him about it. He sort of laughed at me and asked my age, which I sheepishly responded "twenty..." He then told me "You're young. You have lots of time, you'll figure it out"

I'm not sure if he brushed me off because he truly wanted me to figure it out for myself, or if he just didn't know the right words to say to point me in the right direction. If I knew what I know now then, I would have told myself that it's just the beginning. I was waking up.

We never know we have been asleep until we wake up. You look at the clock and realize you've accidentally fallen asleep for a few hours. Or maybe years. Some of us live our lives half asleep. Going through the motions rather than growing through them. Not willing to wake up and look at ourselves and the baggage we are unknowingly holding on to, or perhaps refusing to let go of.

I have always been afraid of the dark. There is so much around you that you cannot see or protect yourself from in the dark. Yet, there is so much more we are blinded to by our egos even when the lights are on. My darkest moments have also been most magical. Bad things do not happen in life. It's our ego that labels and perceives these experiences as "bad things", when they are really just experiences, stepping stones to the next level of soul growth.

When going through the most grief in my life, I didn't suppress my pain with drugs or alcohol, but I did find other ways to suppress it. Through work, outings, keeping myself more busy than I could handle. When looking for a relationship - I was so afraid to be alone, because I was not willing to look at my inner self - I suppressed the opportunities to see myself by putting myself into the arms of unhealthy relationships. What was I afraid to see? Shouldn't I have been more afraid of what I was not seeing? I knew I struggled with trusting men. As a result, I chose men who I knew were not trustworthy. It took the pressure off to know they were not faithful or honest from the beginning. I dated men who were already committed to other women and didn't feel guilty about it so I didn't either. Until I began to wake up and look at my belief systems and patterns. I was afraid of getting hurt, yet the walls I put up were more painful than the risk of having an open heart. It hurt others in the process, and I've worked hard to forgive myself for that.

When I woke up, I realized that I had been suppressing my own intuition and taking a major detour from my healing. I realized once I uncovered myself from my shell, that there was so much to love about myself. That I could rejoice and be proud of the baby steps I took. The difference was, this time when I would fall down after each step I didn't criticize myself for it. "You did this to yourself, you're such a victim, you can't even take three steps"... you never say that to a baby learning to walk, do you? Each step became a victory. I ended relationships that I knew were unhealthy. I said no to them and said yes to me. I learned how much I love myself and I soooooo love my alone time. Warsan Shire said "I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude" and I finally understood what that meant. I no longer accepted dates because they were a better alternative than being alone. I said no, knowing that being alone was sweet. That I enjoy being with myself. "You get crushed like grapes until you decide to be fine wine" - Caroline Myss.

When I realized this, that question I had asked the spiritual teacher in at the University of Toronto didn't matter any more. That search and feeling of longing for something I could not define was gone. "We're not here to search for happiness, we are here to follow our joy" - Robert Holden.

"Do you know what's better than getting to the top of a mountain? Getting there after you have been lost" - Mike Dooley. This is a reminder for my past, present, and future that it is far better to be vulnerable and love with all your heart, even if you're at risk of getting hurt. It is more of a risk to have the regrets that you didn't give it your all, that didn't love your hardest, that you left things unsaid. It is better to see what is hidden in plain view, and to love yourself for it

A Summary Of My Flight Home, Through Poetry and Haikus:

2015-05-03T20:50:00.000-04:00

6:39pm
They cancelled my flight.
Twenty six hour wait home.
Seven bucks for food.

7:15pm
Is he on a train?
On a plane?
Or in Spain?
Where is Wayne?
Is he in a van?

Is he in the can?

Where is this man?

Is he in the sky?

If he's not here soon he'll make me cry.

Never mind, I found the guy.

7:20pm
At the airport now
Live haiku-ing my journey
When do we go home?

7:26pm

United airline
What a joke of an airline
Just ridiculous

7:32pm
Please bear with me now
Haikus are my therapy
I'll stop soon I swear

7:37pm
I like poetry
Everything is haikus now
How do I stop this?

7:43pm
The doors are closing
The train's leaving the station
We'll catch the next one

7:45pm

Then mom sneezed "ah-choo!" Then everyone stopped and stared Well this is awkward

8:03pm
I just got a tweet
Airline responds to haikus
On our way home soon?

8:10pm
Phone is going dead
Need to charge for more haikus
To be continued

8:46pm
I'm just having some fun
Please don't cancel my next flight
I want to go home

I Want An Indefinitely Long Blank Book And Forever

2015-01-26T05:00:00.000-05:00

I have put together a list of pros and cons about living forever. Unless you have the superpower to stop and start time whenever you want, and be able to age at whatever pace you'd like, I am now on the fence about this one. I used to be jealous of this one species that can live forever. It is called "Turritopsis nutricula" and they can live forever by continuously transforming their cells over and over. And I think, if they can do it, maybe we can too.

Living forever has a lot of consequences and heartbreak. Although you'd never have to worry about procrastination because there literally, will always be a tomorrow. You'd fall in love over and over again with the people you meet, only to see them leave eventually. You could try every single career you were ever interested in because you have enough time to learn about them and experience them all! You could find the answer to life (or something like it), you could find a cure for disease, you could end world hunger and bring on world peace.

But maybe dying holds you back from the next step. You never really know what's on the other side, right? Maybe it's a reunion with everyone you've ever had in your life. Lately I've been entertaining the idea that maybe dying is just a way of teleporting. Maybe when you die, you don't actually "die" but you just leave earth and end up on a different planet, like Mars. And all your lost loved ones that died before you will be there waiting for you, and they've been living there ever since. And for now all you can do is wait until your other loved ones take the same path, or else you'll have to wait until technology is invented to allow earthlings to travel to Mars to come visit.

Maybe life is just like a theatre production. People will enter and exit your life, stage left and right. When it's all over you can meet up back stage and celebrate every individual that made up the play of your existence.

Unapologetically Me

2014-11-19T07:30:00.000-05:00

The thing about writing...

Writing is isolating. You do it alone. Even if you're writing in a crowded room, you're writing alone. How do you be in the world and also be alone? Be inspired by the world but then also have that alone time to gather and write? Writing takes balance and discipline. It takes that part of your brain that is cranking the gears on the side to work bits and pieces of conversation and daily experience into something you can write about. My brain is always taking notes.

When I started writing was when I learned how beautiful it is to be alone. And how being alone doesn't mean lonely. I love being alone. I love my me-time. I love spending time with myself. It wasn't always that way, but now that I've discovered it... It's a good place to live from.

Loving yourself enough that you get to choose from the heart rather than from fear. Not staying in a relationship because you're afraid to be alone. Not doing anything that doesn't benefit your life in some way. Choosing to be with people who inspire you, encourage you, make your life better. Having no guilt saying "NO" to the ones who don't. Putting yourself first and being unapologetic about it.

The Art of Letting Go

2014-10-20T20:47:00.000-04:00

Basements. Sometimes they are used for storage. Sometimes for extra luxury space in your home. I'm consciously tuning into my deepest darkest corners for the clutter I may be holding on to. The things sitting there that I've forgotten about. The stuff I've pushed to the side with the intention of "getting around to it eventually". The items that I keep thinking I may one day need it, but likely won't ever... My house looks like this too, and I have no doubt that it's a reflection of myself. I moved to this house over a year ago. There are still boxes in the basement waiting to be unpacked. We all have things like these. Again, a reflection. There always seems to be baggage you forgot you had.

In my defense, I have done a lot to make the basement into "extra luxury space" rather than storage, and a lot of the boxes that are left unpacked are because they're waiting for the renovations to be completed, whenever that may be.

I moved in with my Gido to help take care of him after my Baba passed away, so my home doesn't really feel like "mine". But as long as my Gido is here there is nowhere else I'd rather be. I wouldn't trade hearing his same stories over and over again for anything. Or having to monitor what he puts in the freezer. Or making sure he eats more than just mayonnaise sandwiches every day. Or always living with the scent of Listerine and Apple Cider Vinegar because he believes they are the best home remedies for just about anything.

We are in the process of renovating. We have cleared out enough junk to fill three 5-tonne dumpsters. Sometimes as we are throwing out the junk, Gido stops us and says "wait, don't throw that away"-- pointing at a broken chair. I know he has good intentions. I know he thinks he can fix it and make it better. But that's also how we have enough junk here to fill three dumpsters, thinking he'll one day get to it and mend everything he stored away. But the truth is, you can't fix everything. You can't make everything better. Take what you need, keep what's sentimental, let go of the rest.

As I clear out space I feel a shift in myself happening. We're in a period of transition with the change of seasons, the transformation of our home, and adjustments in our routines. As I clear out space in my home I feel that space is clearing in my life. Things that no longer serve me are falling away, new experiences are showing up unexpectedly. And then there's this feeling like something else exciting is on it's way. It's like I'm waiting on the platform for a train to arrive but not sure what will greet me. Whatever life brings I know it will be good.

In the meantime... I have another dumpster to fill.