Tag: life lessons

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What are you most proud of?

That I don’t see life as a miserable, gruelling concept. 
That I don’t see life as something forced onto me. 
That I still manage to find the light, the crack in the sidewalk to sprout from. 

How, even through convoluted grief and anger at years lost to trauma and heartbreaks of every genre but romantic, I still want to be alive. 
How, even through the identity changes, early maturation and dissociation, I crave a fresh morning to begin again. 
How, even through adversity, I still desire this life; my life. 

How, even?

Because I want to feel the sun on my scars.
Because joy is more potent when sorrow is steeped in with it. 
Because I want to love, to mourn, to laugh, to sob, to emote,

And I will pursue this at any cost. 

Forever, ever?

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We’re a forever oriented species. We think that if something can stand the test of time (which is an oxymoron considering time is indefinite), then it means something, it’s worthy of our attention. Relationships, jobs, happiness-the closer we aim to “forever,” the more it holds significance. We are obsessed with endings in this weird, meta way, in that if an ending happens, it means we Failed At The Thing, but if there is no ending at all, then it’s a success. So if something just trails on until the sun collapses in on itself and the universe’s consciousness shrivels up, that’s the marker of triumph? 

An ending is not an omen. It actually doesn’t even hold the binary of good and bad within itself; an ending is by definition neutral. I am always moved by the saying “all is well that ends well,” because it highlights the idea that it isn’t the ending we should fixate on, but everything that happens before it. If you truly loved someone with all the vulnerability and heart you could muster, and it ended, it doesn’t automatically curdle the entire relationship. If you proved yourself time and time again in your workplace and still found reasons to quit, it doesn’t mean that part of your resume needs to be burned. In your happiest moments, if you truly embodied the feeling and enwrapped yourself in every molecule of joy, it doesn’t make the lulls in your happiness proof you never had it in the first place. 

An end is change, and truthfully, I don’t think we’re forever oriented-i think we’re change resistant. Something starts and we’re so enamoured with the newness of it all that we hope and pray its trajectory never changes. New experiences are juicy and good for the brain. An ending must mean all this potent neural carving must come to a screeching halt, right? 

An ending is nothing more than a new experience flipped over. If you can’t let things end, all that luscious work your brain does during the newness will crack and dry into resentment. It is imperative we let endings take their natural course in our lifetimes, because that is the ebb and flow of the universe itself. Things begin and end in complete neutrality-why do we think our life experiences are any different? 

My Raspberry Life: A Yearn for More.

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One day you’re 10, and you’re waking up to the wet wilderness, putting on your dirt streaked flip flops to pick wild raspberries for morning pancakes. The foam soles bend around the gravel road, and you can feel every single pebble like the princess and the pea except you’re the king, the king of this very second. You let the silence hang, tight around your jaw, because even you know not to break the quiet of raspberry pancake mornings. 

And then one day you’re 25, and you don’t remember the last time you sunk your feet into grass, soil; and I mean nature’s grass and soil, not some city slicked park with cobblestone paths and pre-planted flowers and stiff lawn grass. You don’t remember the last time you truly let a silence cling to itself, because now they’re “uncomfortable” and adults are committed to tampering them with pseudo-niceties. You don’t remember the last time you had a morning red with raspberries and not red from tension, from yesterday’s unresolved woes. 

You don’t remember the last time you felt like a king, a god. 

Who feeds the adult raspberries? 

Faculty of Existence

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Before I turned 18, I might as well have not existed. 

My teenaged years were a stale, stagnant fog. I was a stringed puppet, a shell of the raw, confident aura teenagers possess. I was puppeteered by my parents, and with glee-I knew no better but to impress them dutifully. My days were filled with homework and housework, and my brain echoed the virtues and expectations of my parents. I dug my nose in book after book, firstly for pleasure (I was an avid reader-aren’t all writers?), and secondly to perform well in school. 

And perform well I did. 

There were 3 high schools in my small town-a catholic one, which was written off by most of the town unless you were catholic, and 2 public schools. One was known for its successful sports teams and athletics, and the other was known for creating academic geniuses who could name all the capital cities of every country by memory and solve complex math problems without a calculator. Considering I couldn’t climb a flight of stairs without becoming winded, you can correctly assume which high school I went to. 

I was always smart and studious, reliable, and responsible. Not a sugary cooler or soggy joint or a late-night house party could lead me astray. My entire existence revolved around school and doing well in it. 

And do well I did. 

I got above average grades-I remember a highlight of my high school years was receiving a 97 as the final mark in an introductory philosophy class. Teachers praised me-I had an English teacher take me aside after class to tell me how skilled of a public speaker I was. My parents praised my hard work ethic and the culminating grade to show for it-they had a system of money given for the amount of As on a report card, and I’d laugh all the way to the bank most semesters. 

But surely there was more to life than this? 

As I inched closer to graduating, I felt this profound loss of a true teenage experience. I felt bored, exhausted with my existence, pitying myself and my lame life. I had no sense of self outside pleasing my parents, outside of good grades and a clean track record. I couldn’t make mistakes or bad decisions. I couldn’t trip up or not know the answer. I couldn’t make a mess or burn bridges. All I knew was successful, tangible output. 

I fell flat on my ass after high school. I started and quit 2 separate undergraduate programs, failing emotionally in the first one and academically in the second one. 

The first time around, I began pursuing a degree my parents pushed (I had yet to learn my lesson about chronic parent-pleasing). It was guaranteed secure, high income, and hey, who doesn’t want that, I guess? 

As it turns out, pursuing something I couldn’t have cared less about took its toll on me, and I evidently became depressed. Days blurred into weeks, weeks into months, and I didn’t want to be awake for any of them. I did most assignments rotting away in my bed and didn’t bother studying for most tests and exams. One night, I had gone to bed with the surefire hopes of not waking up and had one of the most violent-snotty-nose-convulsing-crying-breakdowns of my life. I wasn’t a stranger to hard times and mental roadblocks, but I had never had a suicidal thought until that moment, and that scared me shitless. 

I needed change. 

The change I needed so desperately as a teenager was finally swelling in as a young adult. I quit the program after the first year, to the dismay of my parents. Their bright little gold star was now a dull participation medal, but it was more important I was alive to wear the medal than not be here at all, so they complied. I decided to work for a year and reapply to the program I wanted right out of high school but was discouraged from. 

And that I did. 

A year later, I am enrolled in what I think is my dream program. For once, I feel like I am living for myself. I feel like a True Adult, and the pants fit a little big, but I make it work because there’s nothing a belt and a little confidence can’t hide. 

Here, though? I was completely pantsed. 

I learned the hard way that I am not cut out for university level science courses (I have forever been an English girl). What I thought was pursuing a passion for the sciences and turning over a new leaf was actually a mean and abrasive body check from Life. I failed-yes, Failed with a capital F-half of my first semester (which was a light course load!), and it sent me reeling. 

I remember feeling like I aced my economics exam, only to be slapped in the face with a D as my final mark. I knew I struggled with my chemistry tests, but I was still shocked at the big fat F as my final letter grade. I tried my very hardest in calculus and couldn’t get anything over a passing mark the entire semester. Truly, what hurt me the most though, was that I was actually trying this time, and I still couldn’t stay afloat. It was a swimming lesson, and I was in the deep end for the first time. 

I tried to pick up the pieces after my first year-I took summer courses, I spoke with academic advisors, adjusted my next semester accordingly-but I could barely tread water in my second year. I was buoyed to what little pride I had left, but after another grueling and humiliating semester, I knew what I had to do. I tossed out my life preserver and let the tide take me.

I quit. Again. 

The only thing that used to matter for me was doing well in school, and then suddenly I was incapable of receiving more than a 65 on any given test or assignment. I needed a hard reset, and it was precisely the failing not once, but twice, out of post-secondary school that rebooted me. 

This was the first time I truly failed at something. It brought me to some of the lowest points in my mind. Grazing the gravel at rock bottom rattled me in a way I don’t think anything else could have. It was the exact equal and opposite reaction I needed to my teenaged years. I needed to fail, and more specifically, I needed to fail academically. I needed to disappoint my parents, academically. I needed a break, academically. 

Going from a straight A student to a university dropout was a hard turn to maneuver. Having your entire identity wrapped up in a very fleeting yet integral part of your childhood i.e., school, is not a road I’d suggest taking-it’s smooth and curve free but leads right off a cliff. 

Once I brushed the Ds and Fs off my knees, once I openly claimed my title of dropout, once I finally decided to Just Fucking Live, I found myself. Existence is precious, profound, intense-it’s holding a newborn baby, it’s crying yourself into a deep slumber, it’s an ice cream cone on a summer day. I may not have gotten a teenagerhood, but you’re sure as hell I’m cashing in every Adult experience I can. 

The result?

I have not been in school since. 

Eternal Unrest.

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When death stretches your eyelids,
so tight you don’t have time to rewind,
to have tea with your demons,
to repent and regret and relinquish yourself, 
they stay rigoured,
a forced awakening of your last moments. 

Only a life of sin would force your eyes open upon death, as if to say,
“watch yourself burn.”  

An afterlife of eternal unrest,
reserved for the wicked. 

the tradeoff for maturity.

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I gave up all my childhood relics too early. 
I refused my dolls, my stuffed animals, my notebooks full of novel ideas, 
to swallow maturity instead. 

I was sooner than ready ushered into adulthood, 
to wear the mark of maturity ripe on my flat chest. 
Every “you’re so mature” proclaimed from an adult singed it deeper into my flesh. 
The scar soothed my loss. 

Yet, I was not welcome in adult spaces. 
I was hushed and spoken over, my emotions belittled, 
contrived in the twilight zone of being a child in years, but not in feeling. 

Now, I am an adult in years only. 
In feeling, perhaps a quiet, old matriarch whose hands are calloused with past lives. 

But I have danced for many years in the arms of apparent maturity, 
surely I should be a natural? 

I am anything but. 
The dance is awkward and clumsy, and my teacher is absent. 
I traded the precious performance of childhood for adult approval. 

And now? I don’t know how to dance. 

After Death

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How strange it is,
to watch someone’s face sparkle and dance with life on a Monday,
and for it to be gone by Tuesday.

How strange it is,
for our bodies to decay, to expire,
yet leave behind an undeniable
presence if we’re open to it.

How strange it is
to look into your eyes merely through a photograph
and still feel the life you once held through them.

It sometimes feels silly, futile,
to pour you liquor when I don’t drink,
to light a candle even though you don’t have eyes to see it,
to pray to you when I have no religious ties.

But death has taught me that the permanence of spirit goes beyond what is comprehendible for me.

It is precisely in the offerings, the flames, and the devotions where I can find you again,
because looking for you in the flesh is the true shortcoming of my humanness.

I cultivate a new relationship with you.
One where a dime dropped means you heard my prayers,
where a vivid dream of you is no longer a dream but a genuine encounter with you,
where a stranger in passing who looks eerily like you is a reminder that you still exist, just differently.

What beauty there is to foster connection with the deceased.

The Summers of Adulthood

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I’m a child of the hot July sun.

I couldn’t wait to peel a wet bathing suit off my taut skin after a swim. I wanted that first feeling of realizing the sun was still out at 9pm, knowing the season had just begun and anything was possible. I wanted blackened feet from being barefoot all day and bike chain grease on my calves. I wanted sticky popsicle hands that I would only rinse quickly under a hose. I wanted to collapse in bed after a full day outside and finally realize how exhausted I was. I wanted to put potato chips in my sandwiches. I wanted to sit by a crackling bonfire and feel the intensity of the heat. I always felt like I could sit right in the center of the fire and not be burned but feel alleviated.

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The Perils of Productivity

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For a long time, I prided myself on being a productive person. I used my spare time efficiently, writing to-do lists and finishing every task on them. I managed my time well and left no room for error. Unfortunately, I’m human, and so errors would come up, and when they would, I would internally combust. Being thrown off schedule and not being productive was worse than death to me. I would struggle immensely if my mind and body were telling me to rest. I would fight it, still try to work through brain fog and period cramps to achieve at least one thing on my to-do list, so at the very least I was a little bit productive. I thought this was admirable, something to be proud of. I’m slowly learning that it was not.

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