fragileheart's journal

Today my parents are celebrating 30 years of marital bliss. I’m sure that all 30 years haven’t been exactly ‘blissful’ but you know, they’ve made it to this point and they’re still smiling and laughing and sleeping in the same bed¹.

My parents were never openly affectionate in public² but they were always very caring. I get my inability to allow a guest into my home without offering them something to drink at the very least from my Mum. The fact that I can walk around without my head up my ass³ from my Dad. I even get my worrying ways from them⁴.

They are my parents who are lovely, charming, generous, caring and funny⁵ among many other wonderful qualities. My brother and I are very lucky to have parents who have such good souls who push us just enough but trust us to live our own lives. Sure we don’t have a lot of immediate family here, but our small family of four are slowly but surely becoming great friends and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happy Anniversary Mum & Dad xo

Footnotes:

1. and I can only hope they’re doing more than sleeping sometimes – yeah, I went there[↩]
2. so I’m not sure where I get my affection from is what I’m sayin’[↩]
3. and help someone pick up something they dropped[↩]
4. mostly Mum but Dad worries too or maybe he just worries about me[↩]
5. but don’t ever tell them I said that[↩]

I could have gotten upset. I could have gotten really depressed because I can’t really afford to decorate my apartment for Christmas. Instead, I’m excited. I’m excited because I’m going to take on yet another craft project and decorate my home with my own creations. I have a TON of left over gift bags, wrapping paper, Bristol board, ribbon and even some fabric from my Halloween costume project to make pretty much everything.

I will still have to buy lights but I actually think that my Dad has a spare pair at home. I’m not even really planning on buying a tree. I’m planning on putting up some sort of tree mural where I can also display my Christmas cards so that I don’t need to make TOO many ornaments. The ideas were coming to me so quickly that I honestly didn’t even have a second to be sad about not being able to buy my decorations¹.

I’ve already downloaded some templates, and I’m planning on picking up everything from my parents’ place tonight when I go over to pick up the car. I’ll try and update soon on my plans once I get some drawings done… but I have a feeling this is going to be just awesome.

What are your plans this recessionary Christmas?

Footnotes:

1. which is really strange, because we all know how much I love shopping!![↩]

I’ve written about death a lot in the past month and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. I’m not complaining, because it’s a fact of life but I do hope there are happier times ahead for everyone involved. An old friend from high school passed away earlier this month and I’ve been given the morning off so I can attend the mass being held for her tomorrow morning.

I was going to go to the funeral home today, but I chickened out. For one reason or another I didn’t feel like I belonged there. In hindsight, I’m sure the family would have appreciated my being there… but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’m afraid to go to the mass tomorrow but I will be going to that. I don’t know anyone else that is going to be there, but it doesn’t matter.

It’ll be extra weird because this is the first time I will be stepping foot in that church in almost 3 years. I used to sing with the choir and I hear that the choir master who I studied under is no longer there. I’ve decided not to wear mascara in case I start bawling my eyes out. I don’t know how to feel about her death… it has been quite some time since we drifted apart but I remember her vividly and it’s a horrible loss for the world to be without such a caring soul¹.

Please take a moment to wish her soul well, to help her and her beloved rest in the peace that they deserve.

Footnotes:

1. I can’t imagine she would have changed from the person I knew in high school, and from what I hear the changes were amazing[↩]

I tried so hard to get the wireless network set up at the apartment this weekend before Joy¹ came into town so that we² could all use the internet on both computers with ease but there were just more important things to do. Like collect her at the train station. I was late picking her up because I was trying to set it up! D’oh.

The weekend started off on Friday night with a fun dinner at one of my favourite restaurants with one of my favourite girls, Rebecca¹, to celebrate her birthday. Sure we waited 35 minutes to be seated despite having a reservation but the food and service³ is always amazing so we didn’t complain too much. Though we probably should have.

I got up early on Saturday to drive out to Brampton to buy the wireless router for $25⁴. I drove back down to the apartment to clean it up a bit for Joy’s arrival… I was nervous about meeting her again after being out of touch for so long but it was like the absence was absent itself. We headed out to lunch at Milestone’s at Yonge & Dundas to energize for some shopping that afternoon.

We shopped until we dropped then headed back to the apartment to get ready for the Fried Dough Loft party. The party was fun, but there wasn’t enough eye candy and Joy was pretty tired after only having 3 hours sleep the night before. We headed home and continued the party there. The next day was a struggle, to say the least, but we mustered up enough energy to go to see Star Trek⁵ after dinner at my parent’s house⁶.

I begrudgingly went to work on Monday and rushed home so we could go rock climbing and then have a romantic⁷ dinner at a nearby French restaurant. Oh how it was deelish. I drove her to the airport early the next morning and felt my heart breaking all over again.

It has now been less than a week since she left and I feel like I want to abandon everything and fly out west – but I won’t. If I haven’t done it for Dublin yet, I doubt if I would do it for Victoria⁸. But I do hope I get to see her again in August; I lost the connection once but I’ll be damned if I ever lose it again.

Have you re-connected with someone you used to be close with lately?

Footnotes:

1. name has been changed to protect the innocent[↩][↩]
2. myself, the room mate and Joy[↩]
3. food service anyway, the manager is to blame for the wait[↩]
4. retails for $85 – I would say it was worth the 40km or so out there[↩]
5. so very good[↩]
6. after some patio drinks in the afternoon!![↩]
7. now, now boys don’t get any ideas… I’m being sarcastic[↩]
8. probably because he might just dump my ass if I do[↩]

I don’t remember it all that clearly, and there could be a number of explanations for this¹ but that is neither here nor there. I remember meeting him for the first time and thinking how cute he was. I had just begun to make friends at my new High School² and things were going well. He was a good friend of Kevin’s³. Kevin was an old friend from Dubai who had moved here before my family so I trusted him.

We hit it off and were in love before I could even say ‘Jump’. He would spend long bus and subway trips just to come downtown to be with me. We would fight quite a lot, but I always thought it was because we were both so passionate. Eventually, I took his virginity and, if it was possible, we fell even deeper in love. The school year was coming to an end and I was feeling like a change⁴. When I was younger, the easiest thing to change was my hair… so without warning, I chopped it all off. A few days later, after yet another heated argument over the phone he broke up with me. Saying that he couldn’t take fighting with me anymore. I knew he was lying, but I also knew it was useless to fight it.

I was devastated. School was out and I had no one to turn to. At least I didn’t think I had anyone to turn to. In retrospect, if I had only called someone… anyone of my friends from school to hang out I’m sure they would have. I remember calling one of his friends who had become my friend through our relationship crying sometimes. Shane³ was a really sweet guy and probably just couldn’t say no to me whenever I called but I’m sure the last thing he wanted was to listen to his friend’s ex crying over the phone. I soon got tired of bothering Shane and must have decided to turn my attention elsewhere.

Or I may have already been dabbling in online journaling when we were together. This is actually the part that I don’t remember that clearly. It’s as if I’ve always been doing this, but we all know that I couldn’t have been. That summer, I also found out about a chat room on mIRC called #416⁵ where all ‘the cool kids’ hung out. I started going and mainly lurked for the first little while. Slowly, as people started recognising my handle and that I had been coming in every day some of the other regulars started chatting with me, “A/S/L?” Oh god – the horror!

Regardless of the perils⁶ of mIRC, I was able to meet people who were also interested in web design and online journaling⁷. Their interest in it all fed my interest and so began my obsession with airing out my dirty laundry for all to see. Of course, I have a lot more readers now than I ever did back then and I tend to censor⁸ my writing because of it, but I don’t think I would have traded the experience for anything else in the world.

This story was brought to you in celebration of my 500th post in this life of fragileheart’s journal⁹.

How did you start blogging? Are you glad you did?

Footnotes:

1. repression or ‘things’ I’ve done since that have altered my memory.. hehe[↩]
2. Oakwood C.I. for those who remember from my 100 things[↩]
3. name has been changed to protect the innocent[↩][↩]
4. I’m sure we all get that sometimes[↩]
5. the area code for Toront[↩]
6. or lameness[↩]
7. I’m calling it this because in 1997, it wasn’t called ‘Blogging’ yet[↩]
8. and actually edit[↩]
9. I’m sure the number is actually higher if I could all the archives that are offline[↩]