Decade in review.

This isn’t going to be super long, as my memory is not what it used to be. I’ll list some key events, but a lot of stuff happens in 10 years. I probably forget huge things but you’ll have to forgive me, it’s late.

2000- Graduated high school. Took a year off of university to work. Read my first wiccan book. Moved out with Dave. Drank for the first time. Had a falling out with a long time friend that has, to this day, not been repaired. Visited Halifax for the first time. Started my own web site.

2001 – Enrolled in university and continued to work full time. Went to my first pagan ritual. Started treatment for depression. Moved into my now stepfather’s basement with Dave. Started Deadjournalling.

2002 – Dropped out of UPEI. Was crazy on pills. Started LJ. Moved in with Andrew F and his nutso gf Sharon. Sharon left 2 weeks into the lease, cause a spiral of annoyance and bitterness that would last for months until Andrew moved to Ottawa. Les moved in. Started hanging out with Kelly a bunch.

2003 – My friend Chris killed himself. Still crazy on pills for awhile, until weaning myself off in November. Applied and was accepted to Kings. Met Scott and Nadya. Had a falling out with Steve. Sister had a stroke, moved to Halifax. Moved in with Shamus and Lesley for 4 months. Moved to Main Ave. Started hanging out with Brian and his assorted posse. 2003 sucked.

2004 – Shamus and Lesley stop talking to us. Endured crazy neighbors (crazy asshole downstairs, crack addicts in the hallways, dudes with guns in our parking lot) and an apartment building fire. Met Nathalie. Visited Ottawa for the first (and so far, last) time. Decided after the fire to move out. Had a falling out with Brian.

2005 – Get first digital camera. Moved to Shaunslieve. Went on stress leave and subsequently quit Minass. Started hanging out with Ken and Chris. Patched things up with Steve and with Brian. Steve and Cathy moved to Shaunslieve from PEI. Had a weird February, March, and April. Andrew F came to visit in June. Met Drew. Spent summer in a depressive hole. Hated life. Stopped hating life in October. Join ONSD Had a Nathalie on my couch for 3 weeks after her jaunt to Kentucky. Visited Jordan in Fredericton. Start hardcore roleplaying every sunday. Big year.

2006 – Drew moved in with Dave and I, in a bigger apt in Shaunslieve. Decide to go to school, but have to apply the next year. Larissa and Katy visit from Vancouver. Introduced to Awesometown. Quit ONSD due to spectacular bullshit. Meet Sean, after lamenting lack of tallness in life. Attend first PEI Pagan Gathering.

2007 – Make NYE resolution that changes my life. HUGE falling out with Brian. CUT THAT BITCH SO FAST.Apply to school. Get rejected, Swallow sadness. Reapply. Get accepted. Move to Dartmouth. Attend school (with Brian, unfortunately). Stop talking to Chris – grown apart. Star working at Little Mysteries. Meet Amy. Start NSPA. Meet Chuck.

2008 – Continue school. Visit Montreal for the first time. Fall in love with Montreal. Have torrid affair with Montreal (after being ditched for 5 days by the friends I had come with). Leave heartbroken. Attend PEI Pagan Gathering again (with Amy in tow). Seriously consider move to Montreal.

2009 – Say goodbye to Steve and Cathy and Chuck and Sean, who all moved away because they suck. Get to meet Seth before they leave. Graduate school. Remove Scott from my life due to extreme douchecanoeness on his part. Attend another PEI Pagan Gathering (Amy and Elizabeth in tow). Meet Heather. Introduce Heather to Amy. Apply for NSCAD. Get sort of accepted. Figure stuff out, kinda. Lament lack of social life.

2010 – Start NSCAD. Fight for funding. Win lottery. Become superhero. Take over the world and become (mostly) benevolent dictator.

And there we have it.

Goals, thoughts, and huh?

I am waiting for that ol’ inspiration to start biting me in the ass again.

School is on the fulcrum – it could go either way at this point, and for someone who needs to have control, this is a frightening concept. I hate the waiting, and I hate putting effort into things if I don’t know if I can finish it. But right now, I am trying not to think about those types of things. I am trying to focus on things that I have control over and can finish.

Without spreading myself too thin.

See, now, that’s the catch: how does one commit to doing many things they know they can complete without sacrificing time for themselves and their family? It’s difficult.

But away with the rambling. I want to talk about the things I can control.

I am currently working on two classes – as in, I’m teaching them. I want to have my notes and structure done before the end of the month, so that I can spend the next few months going back and making adjustments if I need to to. It’s a lot of research and planning and pacing (as I tend to talk quickly). I am teaching one on creating personal ritual for groups or solitaries (based on my own system) and one on the wheel of the year (myths, traditions, origins, and activities). I am hoping that working on both of these will help bring more spiritual depth back into my life. My adventure last year was wonderful, but it was exhausting and I don’t even know where to begin my own practice again. I really need to make it a priority, because I know that it can become put on the back burner when it comes to school and life. I need to learn to practice for myself again, with my own rules and my own thoughts – as opposed to a more structured system. I’m pretty organized, and I can pinpoint my own beliefs, it’s just drawing them back out again. I’ve had an itch to get working again.

I also have to set some realistic goals for myself for the next year (and I hesitate to say ‘year’, because it surely could go on longer, or be shorter). I like having things to work towards, and I think it’s important so I can keep some sort of focus to guide me. I shall break them down, one by one.

1. Let go. There are a lot of hurts I am carrying – be it about being at NSCC and shaved from people’s lives, or removing betrayers from my life, or even having zero social life because not one other person I know is capable of picking up a phone or dropping a mail to see if perhaps I would like to hang out (not that I expect people to drop everything – I’m not a moron. I am, however, the one who always does the calling to make plans, and I have been since high school. Just because I am good at organizing people together doesn’t mean I like it…). I hang on to these things for dear life, as though they were oars in my lifeboat. They aren’t. I have to accept certain facts of life; some people are far too immature to have lasting relationships, some people are toxic, and some people don’t realize they are shunting you aside. I have to learn to let these things go so that I can move on as a person. If I learn to stop dragging along the past, I will draw people to me who are willing to go the extra mile and be friends, without all the extra drama bullshit.

2. Take more photos. This is a necessity. I have a diploma from an accredited school and I am doing nothing with it. I got really burnt out when I was in school, so I didn’t want to think about my camera (or assignments or grades) for awhile. I think it’s pure fear (what if my skills are gone? what if I suck and I wasted a bunch of cash?) coupled with the fact that I don’t hang out with people or go out anymore. Where do I go to take photos? How many pictures of my cats do I really need? I just need to find the confidence to do this again and just not care.

3. Wii Fit. Critics will slam it and say it’s useless, but I lost 5 lbs in about a month using it. It gave me routine and got me active, even if it was just step aerobics, hula hooping, and yoga. I set it aside during the summer when I thought I would be more active, but I ended up pretty much losing most of my social connections, and spent most of the summer at work or inside (2009 really sucked, okay?). I want to start using it again daily, and though I am getting exercise walking to Pier 21 3 days a week, I’d like to feel less schlumpy and more alive.

4. Couch to 5K. It is my goal to do this when it starts getting warm enough to do it (so, mid-late April). I started it, and then I pulled my back and never continued (unrelated. It also started snowing, so that was it for me). It’s really to say that I did it, and to build up my lung capacity.

5. Remain myself, and reassure myself that I am, in fact, pretty awesome once you get to know me (and get past that initial awkwardness and shyness). I’m weird. I just am. I’m weirdly introverted, but I love the company of people. I say awkward things (mostly due to not knowing what to say and having a hard time realizing that not everyone is as geeky as me and may not get my jokes), but I am pretty neat once you get to know me.

6. Get another tattoo. Please.

7. Write more. I need to do more writing – be it blogging, free writing, journaling, or fiction.

8. Give every pagan holiday a proper celebration. We are often so tempted to let stuff slide on the wayside. I want ti participate or do a ritual for every holiday this year. I think it will help me get on track.

And so I leave on those thoughts. I have some writing to do for my (teaching) classes, and I have school errands to do tomorrow before my school class.

My 2009

I saw quite a few changes this year.

The good:

- I completed post-secondary education.
- I am (probably) going back to school
- Everyone stayed relatively healthy and in one piece

The bad:

- had to remove a few people from my life. One was pretty easy. The other really hard. Both were for the best.
- my health wasn’t the greatest
- school is conditional acceptance, meaning that I have to prove myself.
- student loan is not finalized yet.
- the majority of my friends have either moved away or become distant so I spend a lot of time lonely because no one knows how to COMMUNICATE.

A pretty meh year. The goods were really good, the bads were pretty bad.

Today is a full moon, a blue moon, and a partial eclipse. The full moon is usually significant of things coming together, coming to fruition. I hope that this means that things are going to look up for next year. It’s a new decade, and what a world of difference 10 years makes.

10 years ago, I was still in high school.

How things have changed.

Onward to 2010.

Not that I’m patriotic, but….

I am sick and tired of Canadians talking about how shitty life is here.

Do we have a functional government? Clean water? Well, we’re doing better than the entire population of Somalia, who has been without a functional government for about 15 years. And I don’t mean like, their elections suck and by some fuck up they elected Stephen Harper. Twice. I mean NO GOVERNMENT TO SPEAK OF. Gangs running the city. Looting, raping, and constant murder. You cannot go into the country (as a white westerner) without armed Ethiopian escort, and even then, there is a very good chance that you will be shot for money, food, whatever. You need to wear a bulletproof vest and independent travel is considered suicidal. This is the most lawless city on Earth, a place that even East Vancouver or the dregs of Toronto doesn’t compare to.

Women can go to school. Awesome. In most places in Afghanistan, that is still a rarity. Are you required, by law, to wear a burka here? As a woman, I enjoy having right and freedoms, like voting and wearing pants. And don’t get me wrong, I have high respect for Islam. I just don’t like the idea of women being treated as cattle or something to be owned. Also, the majority of Afghanistan is a war zone. Not necessarily because of foreign occupation (but, to be fair, that has had a detrimental effect), but it has been involved in a civil war since the late 1970’s. The Soviet (remember them?) invasion didn’t really help things. The topple of the Taliban government in 2001 led by the US just served to cause even more problems.

And hey, gay folks? You can marry here. Visit Sana’a, and you’ll likely be stoned or hung to death. Homosexuality is punishable by death. In fact, homosexuality is illegal in the following countries: Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Morocco, The Gambia, Sudan, Tunisia, Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Togo, Cameroon, Angola, São Tomé and Príncipe, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Seychelles, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, St Lucia, Guyana, Palastine Turkmenistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Yemen, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Maldives, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, North Korea, Brunei, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, and Tuvalu. Most of those places, the penalty is a monetary fine or jail time. However in Yemen, Mauritania, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Iran the penalty is death. That’s legal – not including the abuse you will likely suffer if you are revealed to be gay to the general populace.

Yes, the government has kinks. For one, the Conservative party. Stephen Harper. Our environmental policy could be leagues better, and we need to get our fucking armies our of other countries. Yes, Canada has done some things that no Canadian should be proud of (ie, the mining and displacement of people in Guatamala, the war in Afghanistan, etc). But that by far does not represent the majority of Canada or Canadians. Most of Canada does not want to fight a war. Most Canadians are moral, conscious people who want Canada to be seen as a place of beauty, freedom, pride. I am not going to subscribe to some ‘white person guilt’ because of the happenstance of where I was born. I could have just as easily been born a poor street child in Nairobi. I feel blessed that I grew up with food on the table and a roof over my head. I got to go to school and be educated. I have the option to go to post secondary as many times as I like (provided I have the funds).

Try and fight for the things you believe in, and try and change policy for things you care about. Peaceful protest and talking to the MPs is a good start. Hell, voting is a good start. Sitting back and bitching, complaining that Canada sucks is not progressive or in any way helpful. If you don’t like it, leave. We don’t want you anyway.

I despise people who think communism is the be all and end all and are using it as a way to be ~edgy as fuck~, but don’t know much beyond what they’ve read in their ‘manifestos’. They are incredibly sheltered, and often do not practice what they preach. Nine times outta ten, they have never encountered fascism or oppression in their lives.

Because communism is working so well for North Korea, am I right?

Out with the old.

I always feel like I need to shed skin at this time of year. Sometimes I feel like I shed too much, but in the end it always ends up being for the best.

I just removed about 10 or 12 people on Facebook that, for whatever reason, I had on my list. Either classmates I never spoke to or hung out with, or classmates that decided that I wasn’t worth their time (which is fine), or people I met a few times who added me. It’s odd to look at the ebb and flow of people in my life. The folks that are in, and then out again, like a boat with the tides. People who choose prestige and status over friendship.

I’ve been more crafty lately – making little bits and bobs. I keep my hands and brain busy while I wait for my answer from NSCAD so that I don’t think too much into it. I’m trying to only think positive thoughts (and now is the good time to laugh, because I am hopelessly negative), which is a challenge in itself.

I’ve also been more clumsy lately. I’ve hurt my ankle numerous times, pulled my back and chest once, and (the most recent offense) dropped a hot pyrex dish full of bread pudding on to myself (piping out of the oven, folks) – resulting in first and second degree burns on one leg and multiple bruises on my pelvis which are just starting to bloom. Yes, I said the pelvis. I can’t catch worth shit with my hands, but throw it to my crotch and the bitch is jumping to catch it.

Does that make me a slut?

Anyway.

I’m trying to shed old habits, old friends, and things that no longer hold meaning for me.

So here I am, at 2:30am, shedding my skin.

In the beginning there was hum, from a poet whose pulse felt DRUM DRUM DRUM!

I am attempting to inject some positivity in my life.

I’ve applied to school, and am trying to remain positive. I am trying to attract positive things into my life. Things get hard, and I get angry – and I cannot do that anymore.

4 times in the last week I have pulled the same card from my tarot deck – release. I am trying to figure out if I need to release that anger, to release something else, or to be released. At times I really feel something clouding my judgement and mind, but I try to push past it to get to the clarity I know is hidden in there.

I am trying to plan something fun coming up, because I feel if I don’t hang out with someone I don’t live with, I am going to go mad. I get discouraged, mostly, because I am finding more and more that people are unreliable and just … different than I expected. It really disappoints me, because I want to see the best in people, but it’s hard when people let you down. Maybe I just need an injection of new people or ideas into my life.

I feel the need to be inspired.

Better alone?

I used to be the queen of being alone. In fact, I had no problem and often preferred the company of myself to others. I could go out for the day to the park, or the beach, or the mall and be perfectly fine. I would have a great time.

Now, I find, I am lonely when I am alone. I actually prefer the company of others. I like being able to talk to other people and spend time listening to others. I actually have a hard time dealing with being alone. My aversion to being alone has most manifested itself on Twitter, which has become an outlet for me to talk to someone, anyone…

I also have a terrible habit of automatically thinking people are blowing me off when they have other plans – like they’re making excuses. I guess I’ve had a lot of people do that to me in the past, but it really doesn’t happen often now. Even so, I find that thought is the first place my mind goes. It drives me mad, because I can’t stop that feeling, hard as I try. I just end up feeling dejected and hurt – all at my own fault.

The majority of my days off are spent alone. Dave sleeps throughout the day, and Drew is at work. I sit in front of the computer, looking for some conversation, some interaction to keep me from feeling like I have such a terrifying personality that people don’t want me around. Today is a fine example. It is butthorn hot out there, and I want to go swimming, but it’s like I’m afraid to go alone. Instead, I spent my time researching stuff on schools and surfing the net, feeling like crap because I cannot motivate myself to leave the apartment. The apartment is safe.

I have been enochlophobic for most of my life. I avoid live music, usually, because of all the people. I don’t do bars. It is hard for me to attend events and festivals because of all the people. It makes me anxious and fearful and angry. I want to do all of those things, but I just… can’t. I actually dislike the thought of going to a university with large class sizes because of the idea of all those hundreds of people crammed into a room. Ugh.

And my social life suffers.

All I need to do today is leave the house. I need to shower and go to the library to return books. As much as I would love to go to the beach, I don’t drive and lack a vehicle. No buses go to the beach. I could walk from the end of Cow Bay Rd to Rainbow Haven, but it’d take about an hour, and there are no sidewalks.

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I’ll go to the pool tonight with Drew and Dave. It’s an adult only swim, not too many people.

But for now, I just need to force myself to leave the house.

Fat hate

I found these videos via a forum I frequent. As someone who society considers a big ol’ fatty, watching them made me feel empowered and happy. I hope that out there, it helps someone else too.

Thank you, Joy Nash.

Stupid health.

So yeah. I’ve spent the last 3 weeks in odd fluctuations of poor health.

I went camping in Cape Breton at the end of June. I had a lot of fun and took some great photos. I also got devoured by bugs. Bugs really like me.

One of said bug bites (what bug, I don’t know) got infected with 24 hours of my return to Halifax. It swelled up like a balloon and provided me with the displeasure of the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I could barely walk and was, at some points, hysterically sobbing with pain. So, I went to a walk in clinic and got medication – which happens to be the same stuff they give for malaria and staph infections. I was required to take these large pills 4x per day for 10 days.

And that medication provided me with a mosaic of horrible side effects. Without going into too much detail, most things that I suffered were almost the opposite of what the expected side effects were.

And then I woke up this morning, with only 2 days left of pills, covered in hives. My legs, the backs of my arms, and my entire front chest. Over the course of the day they spread.

I went to the doctor (again) – this time my actual doctor. He told me to stop the pills, to double my normal dose of Reactin, and come back and see him Wednesday.

I am miserable and covered in calamine lotion. I have taken a baking soda bath, a black tea bath, and I’m about to down some peppermint tea in hopes of feeling human again.

I really hope that I wake up tomorrow NOT dead. Or itchy. 3 weeks of itchy is starting to get old.

This is a personal topic. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is completely intentional.

I know that inevitably, change is a good thing.

It often doesn’t feel that way when it happens, instead sending people into darker places they might have forgotten to visit recently. I have always thought it is important to embrace the darker things about ourselves – the things we sweep under the rug and avoid until the bump becomes big enough to trip over.

I have recently ended a friendship. I think it was, by far, one of the easiest and hardest things I have ever done. I think that I was prepared for it, but I still mourn it with a tang of newness and surprise. I maintain that it is ‘for the best’ – you know, the things mothers tell their heartbroken daughters when their first crush rejects them for the cheerleader with the ample bosom – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard to adjust to. When you welcome someone into your life to learn from and to learn from you, you always hope for and expect the best. I do not trust easily, so this makes this even harder than for most, even though it was ‘for the best’.

How did I know when to end it?

Much like any relationship, you need to look at it with pros and cons. What are you getting out of your friendship? A friend should make you feel wanted, needed, and special. When the cons start to outweigh the pros, you need to approach the person and try and fix it. Failing that, sometimes it is just better to cut things off before they end even worse. Over the past 7 years, things have progressed from a tentative trust to a full-blown trust, back to a hurtful betrayal. I simply weighed my options, and decided that if I was going to be as mentally healthy as I could be, I could not let someone who was doing harm to my self worth be a part of my life.

What were the grievous offenses?

- showing no respect to me as a woman, to the point of being sexist and almost misogynistic.
- alluding to the fact that they thought I was fat and ugly, no less than 3 times in the past 6 months (and multiple times in the years before that)
- breaking plans with no notice and no notification, thus wasting my time, repeatedly
- no remorse for actions done, regardless of admitted wrong
- treating women as worthless in general, even though it has been expressed multiple times by multiple women that this is wrong
- doesn’t care that I have ended the friendship (really, that’s the kicker)

But, of course, there have to be pros:

- generous with time and money
- similar interests
- close understanding
- supportive about school

To me, it just didn’t add up.

I am still grieving. To me, it feels as though someone had died – and it some ways, it is that way. The person I knew is dead. People are ever changing.

I know that I am not the easiest person to get along with, nor am I everyone’s cup of tea. I have a strong personality that can be overwhelming at times. Beyond that first impression, I am a good person. I am funny and kind and supportive. I like listening to people talk. To say that I have never done wrong would be ludicrous. But I function enough as a normal person to know when I have trampled over that line into ‘no’ territory.

I have my memories of good times, fun, and tears. I will remember the platonic love I once had for this person and will hold it dear, like a long dead relative.

And I will grieve for this. I will slide into the darker bits, and I will get through this. I will move on.