Tag: Twitter

Balancing act

Peek-a-boo

Balancing is tough. It’s tough to find a balance between work and life. It’s tough to find a balance between time you spend with friends versus family versus your significant other. It’s tough to find a balance between downtime and time spent being social. I haven’t spent a lot of time by myself since I moved out of my parents place last summer1. And in fact, I’m pretty sure I had not spent a lot of time by myself since I came back from living in Dublin.

I haven’t had much time to sit down and figure out why that is2, which means I haven’t really had time to figure out exactly how I feel about it. I finally went camping this year and the photo above was taken on our last morning at Silent Lake;  I was disappointed with camping for so many reasons3, but the most important was that I did not get to spend time with nature4 as I so long to do right now.

I write. I like to write anyway, but a lot of my writing requires the quiet of birds chirping or only the wind whisper-howling through the rustle of leaves. But it’s difficult to get in that mindset when I barely have time to put away laundry. But I have no plans on stopping the way life has been pushing me to live; no, I’m determined to live life this way and still find my writing mind with less down time.

After all, what good would I be if I needed to hole myself out in the woods every time I wanted to write something heartfelt? I haven’t shared my poetry on the blog since I removed it from my portfolio5 but I’m thinking maybe enough time has passed that I can do that again6. I shall keep trying to find a way to have balance in my life, and if I should discover some secret to it – I promise to tell you.

How you find balance in your life?

  1. and I really kind of miss it [↩]
  2. it’s a cycle [↩]
  3. we didn’t rough it as much as I was hoping to [↩]
  4. and myself; my thoughts [↩]
  5. which used to be listed on this main domain [↩]
  6. not right now of course, soon… [↩]

Connecting is addictive

I’ve been at home sick for the last three days and thanks to the internet I’ve been able to connect with people. You’ve all made me feel comforted, and certainly less alone than I would have been if I only had John Mayer and my TV shows to keep me company. In particular there has been one person who I have connected with on many different levels… and it is1 intoxicating. I’ve tried refraining from writing about it for various reasons,2 but it has become increasingly difficult.

I can’t say that I remember ever feeling this connected to someone. I can’t say I ever remember being this honest with someone, even with things that could potentially hurt him or his ego. But I have been, and I only wish I could be that honest with everyone. The truth is that we always try to protect people we care about. I think that there is a fine line between wanting to protect our image of ourselves in someone’s eyes and wanting to protect them from becoming hurt by something that we did, by our truths.

It’s strange to feel this connected to someone and still find myself not falling head over heels in love with him3. It’s a nice change of pace from my typical behaviour. Despite having a ‘fragile’ heart, I used to fall in love quite easily… always jumping in head first4. I’m finding myself with a lot of sure footing and even a firm handle on the rails. In the short time I’ve known him, he has become a good friend who I feel lucky to have met and gotten to know5.

The connections I’ve made, the connection I’ve made with him have me sitting here writing instead of tackling the huge to-do list I’ve made myself because I want more. I want to hear more, to read more and to absorb more from you all. I love people and the imperfections that make us all so unique.

I only hope that my writing about my new friend doesn’t scare someone else away. I’m trying something new in the 28th year in my life, and I do hope that the new people I’ve met can come along for the journey6: honesty. I don’t want to hide things just to spare someone’s feelings anymore. This doesn’t mean I’m going to be brash; I will still be respectful of people but I want to find ways to be honest about how I’m feeling regardless of the reaction that I think I’m going to get. And that, by far is the best lesson my new friend has taught me.

Writing about connecting and moving on to honesty may seem like a tangent to some, but I think that honesty is so necessary to connect with someone. Being honest with yourself is the first thing one needs to work on, before you can be honest with anyone else. If there’s anything I’ve learnt in 2009, it’s that. I may have only turned 28 a couple of weeks ago… but I can already tell this is going to be a huge year in my life.

I’m not saying that it’s going to be easy to be honest from here on out. I’m saying I’m going to try my best.

How do you feel about connecting, and being honest with people?

  1. I keep using this word with him, but it really is the most appropriate [↩]
  2. most of which have to do with other members of the opposite sex [↩]
  3. mind you I’m dangerously teetering over that line… it’s even fun to tug at [↩]
  4. This could explain why the heart is so fragile in the first place, huh? [↩]
  5. So much so, that I couldn’t resist writing about him [↩]
  6. as well as those who have been on so far – thank you btw, I love you all [↩]

A twitter meet-up tale

This weekend, I got to do one of the things I love to do the most: Drive. I got to drive so much and it didn’t even matter that some of it was in traffic. Late Saturday morning my Mum and I set off for Buffalo, NY to meet up with fellow blogger/tweeter, and comedian Dartanion. I would love to say that the return trip back to Toronto went off without a hitch but sadly, not only did we start off in the wrong direction for about 30-40 mins but we also encountered a huge line at Lewiston bridge! Once we were past the border, we discovered a traffic jam in St. Catherine’s, but we easily avoided it thanks to Dartanion’s trusty Australian GPS1.

As soon as my Dad left with my Mum in tow2, I downed two shots of tequila and got ready for the 80’s party that we were 4 hours late for. Of course, we didn’t leave before downing one more shot of tequila. Once at the party, there weren’t many people left but we made it our own with some dancing and our very own game of twister. Dartanion came out as the winner of the first game but didn’t play again for a shot at the title.

You would think that going to bed at almost 7am would mean that we wouldn’t be able to get up before noon, but apparently one can’t sleep when you have a pounding headache from being hydrated purely by alcohol 3. Once we had breakfast4 and our showers, we headed out to do some touristy things in Toronto. After visiting Casa Loma, the CN tower and a 1 hour harbour tour I showed him my5 beloved Distillery District. We could have gone to another party that I knew about that night, but we wanted to get up early the next day and head down to Niagara for a little bit.

Traffic had other ideas though, and we didn’t get into Niagara Falls until around 12 p.m. which was way later than either of us wanted to get there.  The crowds and $20 parking fee meant that I had to drop him off at a good spot to take photos and drive around until I could find a good place to make a U-turn6. The rainbow bridge treated us better than Lewiston did a couple of nights before and we were eating a late lunch at Chili’s in no time.

Now I know you think this story has come to it’s end but I’m sorry to inform you that it is far from that. On the way back I tried my best to avoid Lewiston but obviously don’t know the US freeways well enough to know that there is no way to do that when you’re on the I-190. Luckily, I was able to exit at R. Moses Parkway before being perma-stuck in a long line to hell… after a scenic drive I arrive at Rainbow bridge where the wait was at least 10 times shorter than at Lewiston.

I managed to hit a bit of the same traffic in St. Catherine’s that we had hit a couple of nights before, but I also managed to take the same detour through the vineyards7 and shaved about 40-50 mins off my travel time. But someone didn’t want me back in Toronto just yet… out of the corner of my eye, I saw her: a lady in the passenger seat of the car to my left was frantically waving her arms in the air. Once I looked over, I realised she was waving at me. She quickly pointed to my rear, driver side tyre and made a gesture to simulate a flat surface. I furrowed my brow and mouthed ‘Thank You’, and quickly turned on my signal to change to the right lane and eventually the shoulder.

After my phone conked out and decided that it didn’t want to reset itself for a whole 20 minutes, I finally got a hold of my Dad and got some basic directions from him. I knew where to find everything: spare tire, jack, crow bar… but I didn’t want to start until I was absolutely sure there wasn’t something I needed to know. Three people stopped: one car just stopped behind me and watched me for a few minutes but must have seen that I was on my phone and so drove off after I waved and smiled at them; one car stopped just ahead of me8: being able to check off “change a tyre” on the proverbial to-do list.

  1. it wasn’t really Austalian, he was just using the Australian voice [↩]
  2. he came to pick her up at the apartment [↩]
  3. so, NOT hydrated [↩]
  4. and I swept the entire apartment to appease my hangover [↩]
  5. yes, it’s mine [↩]
  6. yes, another illegal one — sorry!! [↩]
  7. not literally of course [↩]
  8. and was actually putting himself in a lot of danger because of where he stopped), and got out to ask me if I needed help but I thanked him for stopping and sent him on his way; the third car that stopped was actually big rig, and the long, blond-haired driver insisted on helping so I let him check to see if I had tightened the bolts enough and remove the jack for me… he seemed to welcome the break he got from the long drive he must have been on.

    I was at my parents’ house 30 minutes later and I have to say that it was actually the perfect end to the weekend of hanging out with a smart cookie, and rediscovering my city ((and what I love so much about it – the harbourfront [↩]