Tag: Celebration

When change hurts

It has been a journey to say the least. The last few months have been a wonderful whirlwind of ups, downs and important lessons and realizations. I think the one lesson that I didn’t expect to learn after all this is that despite being able to adapt to my surroundings extremely well -how much my bearings are affected if I don’t have a proper place to sleep.

For the last three months I have been sleeping on my Ikea love-seat because I couldn’t sleep on my bed1 until three nights ago. Depending on what way you look at it, you could say it cost me a lot but I don’t think placing blame on circumstance does me any good so it just is what it was: a learning experience. Heck, it didn’t kill me right?

30 years. As of some time in the late evening on November 7th, the cells and whatever spirit that make up this girl right here would have been alive for 30 years. I’ll admit there is a part of me that feels like a bit of a disappointment but then there’s another part of me that knows that my life is only just beginning so long as I allow myself the chance at said beginning.

Live each day as if it were your last. Someone great said that to me recently as we were walking the 6.5kms to my new home2 at 4am. By the way, don’t let the knowledge of this act taint your image of bohunkCA; he was the perfect jerk as always – and yes ladies, he was totally topless the whole way there 😉

I want to make an art out of living life, where I find joy in every little moment of every day – regardless of what is going on at the time. Growing up, I had never really paid much attention to the things that really made my heart soar. I knew the obvious things like music3, food, love, and sex… all those self-indulgent sort of things. But now I’m paying more attention to how happy it makes me to be around people like my family and closest friends4.

I know I have lot of work to do up ahead of me but I do think I am up to the task. It feels strange to say that I have never really felt this ready before but I guess I’m just done being afraid. I’m still in the process of getting my life back but I have no doubt that whatever is coming next is going to be amazing. It’s been amazing even when it should have been horrible so how could it not?!

I want to know though: did you love or hate turning 30?

  1. I really don’t want to say it, don’t make me say it: I had bed bugs [↩]
  2. it was so old school I couldn’t resist but agree to walk home with him [↩]
  3. specifically singing [↩]
  4. the ones who have stuck by me no matter what fucked up shit I’ve done – you know who you are [↩]

It hasn’t left

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.

  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 [↩]

Is it the beginning, or the end?

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. Shane5 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 #4166 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 perils7 of mIRC, I was able to meet people who were also interested in web design and online journaling8. 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 censor9 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 journal10.

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

  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. name has been changed to protect the innocent [↩]
  6. the area code for Toronto [↩]
  7. or lameness [↩]
  8. I’m calling it this because in 1997, it wasn’t called ‘Blogging’ yet [↩]
  9. and actually edit [↩]
  10. I’m sure the number is actually higher if I could all the archives that are offline [↩]