I am not a professional, but it is something I do that helps relax me. My current favourite is making decoupage on canvas of things I find inspiring from my ‘page a day’ calendar.
I went on a bit of a spree after my Mom died. I found it was a way to soothe my soul and get in touch with my deeper self and feelings.
I also make them for those I love the most; I have forgotten to take pictures of some of these, but they are out there.
It’s important to take time out for ourselves. To find ways to connect with our minds and emotions.
I find that taking an hour out of my day to make something with my hands helps to center me.
This is something I have been actively working on; taking time for myself and not apologizing for it. As I do this more regularly, I find I become a better person; I am able to love more fully, I have more energy, I have more patience. It’s a win-win-win situation.
I also sleep better. Though, I still have amazingly vivid and usually wild dreams. I love my dreams because I get to spend time with people I might not see otherwise.
So, grab yourself a coffee or tea and sit and make something. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t even have to be great. It just has to be you; a piece of you. Let it reflect whatever it is you are feeling.
You might even surprise yourself with what you are able to create!
When I was in high school, I had a teacher that would talk to us about personal matters. Among them was the idea of love and how he was struggling with whether, or not, to propose to his girlfriend. I remember him talking about how he didn’t believe that there was one person for each of us. This was an idea that rocked my world as a young, naïve, tender youth. I felt offended for his girlfriend. ‘How could he even be thinking about asking her to marry him if he doesn’t even think of her as the one,’ I thought to myself. Now that I have many more years of life experience, I totally understand him.
Today’s youth would more likely be confused by my adolescent belief that there was “the one” than they would his idea that there are many people with whom he could be happy. For today’s youth, the concept of love and relationships is much more open than it was when I was young. Polyamorousim is accepted as an option, along with many other ways of living that were simply not accepted when I was young. I am very glad for this shift as I have never understood why it matters to anyone who someone else loves, or how anyone else wishes to love or live.
Is it possible to love more than one person at a time? I believe it is.
Is it true that there is one special person for each of us? I don’t think so.
What happens when other people influence major decisions, drastically changing the course of our lives?
Back in the day, when my love for the Christian God…or, perhaps it’s better that I say, when my love for my idea of the Christian God determined every move I made, word I spoke, and step I took, the direction of my life was decided by the belief that I needed to do as He willed and wanted.
This made me extremely susceptible to influence from others; mortals, who had no further insight into me, to “God,” or to what should have been than I did. In truth, if I had been more independent and less brainwashed, it would be fair to say that they had less insight into myself and my life than I did. Unfortunately, this is not how I viewed things then. I believed that they had greater insight, and I was silly, sinful even, to not listen to them and follow their leadership.
This led me to some wonderful places, to be true, but it also led me to even more harmful places that I never should have been. I have worked hard through the years to restore what they broke; to find beauty in the ugliness and hope in the despair that they wrought on my life.
One of these huge moments had me packing up my life and moving across the country, and then an entire ocean, to a completely different hemisphere, to follow what I was told was God’s plan for my life. But it was not an easy thing to do. In fact, I was terrified and sickened by the idea the entire time. I remember speaking to my friends, pleading with them to convince me to stay; to tell me it was the wrong thing to do. To save me.
No one did.
They all just…let me go.
I left terrified, heartbroken, scared, and unsure of everything; especially myself.
I remember when my best friend brought me to the airport I sobbed; I sobbed and begged to stay. It was beyond her.
That day when we were scrap booking together, were you spending time with me because you just wanted to be with me, to spend time with me?
When we listened to Ryan Adams sing “Come Pick Me Up,” were you trying to send me a message?
Do you realize that it is me that you wrote that song about? I was the one who told you that the stars don’t shine in the city. You were walking me home after we watched “A Beautiful Mind” together. I was missing my country home, where the stars were endless and felt as though you could reach-out and touch.
And that time in the magical snowfall; I was sure there was an intensity of feeling that wanted me to stay, wishing that we were alone together.
Am I making all of this up? I was so unsure of myself back then, I barely knew how to think for myself. I did know, however, that I disagreed with many of the decisions that were being made at the expense of people’s lives. Decisions that hurt and wounded people. I did speak up when I really believed differently than what was being done, but each time I was dismissed, implanting further the idea that I couldn’t trust myself.
I remember you saying once that this leader “wasn’t always right” and “didn’t know everything.” I shrugged it off and figured you were just having a moment.
I always say that I have no regrets in life but, sometimes I do wish that I could go back and live those days knowing then what I know now – about myself. I wish I could do it again as the self-assured, self-aware person that I am now. I wonder how different life would be.
But we can’t go back. We can’t do it again, no matter how much we might wish to be able to do so. Maybe that is for the best.
Despite this, I want you to know that I loved you, I love you still, and I will probably always love you. Maybe you loved me too. Maybe I’ll never know, and that’s okay.
When I was a Christian it was easy to do things to help others in a way that felt very monumental; after all, I was doing God’s work. Believing yourself to be a direct conduit between God and others is pretty major.
I walked in, what Christians like to call, “authority.” I had the authority of God with me. What I did, what I said, it was greater than myself, it was done with a believed God-given authority.
The belief that I was part of something bigger, that I had a “calling,” and that I was doing “God’s work,” gave me the confidence, or the imagined authority, to get involved in situations and in people’s lives that could seem, and does seem to me now, to be intrusive.
One thing I realized many years ago, when I first became an atheist, was how Christians use the idea of prayer as a free ticket to pry into people’s lives, and make assumptions.
I was taught to “pray with authority,” even though you know that you can’t tell God what to do. Part of being a responsible pray-er was to be as specific as possible. Therefore, it was important to know specific details about people’s lives and struggles, in order to pray for what was needed with more authority.
One thing that has not changed for me since becoming an atheist, is my love and care for people. I still want to do what I can to help those around me live their best lives. I like helping and supporting people. I like being able to celebrate with them, or be there when they need a helping hand. But, this is much harder to do without this sense of “authority” behind me, without a feeling that I’m doing God’s work, and therefore am infallible.
I know better. I know and have witnessed how much harm can be done by those who try to help, but are not professionally equipped or trained to do so. I have experienced how “the power of God” has been an insufficient tool to deal effectively with complicated situations. The truth is, the “authority” under which Christians operate is dangerous because it gives the believer a sense of entitlement as well as a false idea of ones ability.
But, as I was trying to drift off to sleep tonight, I was missing this feeling of authority and wondering how things might be different if I still felt as though I had authority. Could I find somewhere else from which a sense of authority could be plucked? Can the authority to assume I have the answers to someone’s problem, or am a solution to their struggles be found in my humanity? Separated from a celestial being or deity?
As I finish up, I will be drifting off to sleep thinking about this: Can I conjure a similar feeling or level authority from the idea that who I am as a human gives me the authority needed to help who you are as a person, not because some God exists and says so, but because my humanity can reach out to yours and find common ground?
Sometimes I get lost in nostalgia. Today is one of those days.
I lived in Toronto for 11 years in two different time periods. There was pre-New Zealand and post-New Zealand and the experiences are vastly different from one another.
This morning I find myself in deep reflection, once again, on my time there pre-New Zealand. This was an intense time full of deep relationships, friendships, emotions, highs, lows, struggles and heart aches.
During this time I led a reflection activity for a group of young people using Billy Joel’s song “This is the Time,” encouraging them to make the most of their young days because they would not last forever. I didn’t realize how true these lyrics would become for me. I truly thought that this was a time that would last forever; at least for me.
As I sit here writing this, listening to these lyrics again, I am almost surprised by how much things have changed. I was certain that my life was going to continue-on in the same manner, that I would be surrounded by the same people, doing the same things, for the rest of my days.
But, everything has changed.
There are beliefs, lifestyles, locations and people long-gone that I thought I would never leave, or leave behind.
Despite the fact that I was encouraging a group of young people to be mindful of their current situation, that it would not last forever, I did not seem to grasp this reality for myself.
There is one truth I know in life – things will change. I miss my friends, I miss the city and sometimes I even miss some of the experiences. I never thought I would be sitting here, miles away, having not spoken to most of these friends for many years, worlds apart from one another, living completely different lives.
In-between us now sits the large ocean called “Life,” and it seems impossible to cross.
It is so strange to be back here. Back where it all began for me. This little town that formed so much of who I am, good and bad. Where I experienced so much joy, sadness, fear, shame, hurt, hope and love.
Each street breathes distant memories, rising up from the pavement and from walls of old buildings like dust being stirred by a strange wind. Sometimes the dust that rises is so thick I feel as though I cannot breathe.
I often ask myself how I will manage being surrounded by these oppressive memories, images and feelings. Will I ever manage to bring some stillness to this never-ending reel of embarrassments and moments of shame that I long to forget? Can I find joy here as well? Can memories that have long been stained and despised be redeemed?
I see a ghost of myself on every street, in corners, down ally’s, in buildings, and in the absence of buildings. She cries-out, asking to be found, to be rescued, to be safe, to be loved and to be free.
I search for ways to mend what was broken, picking up a piece of me that was left here, and a shard of me that was abandoned over there, and I attempt to find a way of putting them together that brings peace and makes me feel whole.
I ask myself if the town itself is oppressive, or if it’s just me – my own mind. I have no answer yet.
What can a person do, but keep pushing-forward, attempting to make things right, to find healing and peace and be better today than yesterday.
I know I have been extremely slack in writing. This will be no surprise to anyone who was followed or known me for any length of time. I have a history of writing faithfully for bursts of time, followed by not writing for a length of time, only to pick it up and start again. On and on the cycle goes.
The main reason for this is that there are many, many, many things I want to write about that involve other people and I am not quite ready to put the stories that include other people (even if I withhold names) out there just yet. But, that doesn’t mean the writing isn’t happening. I still have to go through the process of writing about what’s in my mind. I just can’t share it yet.
These stories invade my mind and I still have to allow myself the time to go through them and let the stories work themselves out before I can move on to something else.
This often includes a process of revisiting the past and sometimes even reaching-out to a long, lost, friend or just trying to come to terms with how an old relationship ended.
There has been a lot of this for me in the past 6 months as our move back home has brought-up many memories and experiences with which I still needed to process and come to terms.
I have also become a full-time university student, via distance ed., working towards a degree. This has been a dream of mine ever since I left High School, when depression and anxiety held me back from being able to attend university. It has been something I had always missed-out on and, being someone who loves school and loves to learn, had always dreamed I would be able to do.
Now I’m doing it and it feels great!
I am also continually improving my health and nutrition and constantly striving to treat myself well.
I’m thrilled to be sitting at the dining room table, listening to the oven gently whirring as it cooks my chicken breasts mixed with the sound of birds softly chirping and an occasional car passing-by on the highway.It is peaceful.
I have been longing to write. Craving some solid, uninterrupted and quiet time to be able to sit down and reflect on some things.
Despite living in the (somewhat) country again, it has been a flurry of activity ever since our things arrived. We have finally (mostly) settled-in and my husband has started a full-time job. This also means that, for the first time since my son was 11.2 months old, I am a stay-at-home Mom.
I love my son dearly, and he is wonderful to play with and really well behaved, but I feel like my brain is shrivelling – I miss adult conversation and interaction every day, and having adult tasks/duties and responsibilities in my adult workplace.
I have never imagined that I was really the right ‘make’ to be a stay-at-home Mom and have always, truly, envied woman who seemed so full and fulfilled in the role. The ability to keep themselves challenged and stimulated as individuals while devoting so much of their energy and attention to little ones is truly impressive to me. I am, perhaps, too lazy for this. Or, maybe, too picky or difficult to please.
But, whatever it is that makes it a challenge for me to assume this role, here I am anyways.
I recall before I had given birth to my child that I had this dream of what my days of leave would look like: my baby would be sleeping sweetly, having been fed, changed, cuddled and cared for with perfection by yours truly and I would be serenely sipping a cup of tea while writing my novel.
I don’t think I even wrote one single word (other than facebook posts) for most of that time. And even then, the posts were largely pleading for help, or just posting a cute picture (or 100 cute pictures) of my perfect child.
I have felt challenged, on a personal level, recently to really carve-out time for what it is that is special and important to me and the one thing to which I consistently return is writing.
I know that woman are always talking about this and there seem to be endless articles about the importance of taking time for yourself. But, that is definitely more easily said than done when there is a constant list of things that need to be done.
However, I have really been working on the art of prioritizing and being “ok” with things that are not urgent, being left undone a little bit longer while I enjoy a moment. Yesterday I sat outside while my son had his nap, with a cup of tea and a little slice of carrot cake and I read and caught-up on my “5 Year Journal” entries.
It wasn’t that bad, actually. It didn’t really put me that much further behind in the tasks I was hoping to accomplish. Here I am, Day 2 of trying to be intentional about taking a small chunk of time out of my day to do something that is just for me and so far, so good.
I admit it. I search for people all the time who aren’t my friends on Facebook. Usually, this happens during bouts of nostalgia when I find myself thinking about the people with whom I grew-up and wondering where they are, what they are doing, what they look like and how happy they appear.
I want to compare where I am, what I’m doing, what I look like and how happy I am with my childhood friends. I am always relieved and slightly joyous when I see that there has been weight gain, wrinkles, weariness…good. It’s not just me.
There are many people with whom I wish I had kept more regular contact. People with whom I am no longer “friends” – not even on Facebook. Sometimes I creep these people to see what life is like for them. I did this yesterday and spent a considerable amount of time looking at a few childhood friends and I was genuinely glad to see how happy they appeared. I was pleased that they had experienced adventures, travel, fun, love and beauty.
I considered sending a few friend requests, but got lost in thoughts of how it would be perceived by these people. I suffered from depression for most of my time in high school. This was before depression was really understood, talked about or treated. But, the biggest casualty of my depression was my social life. I withdrew from all of my friends and lost most of those relationships. One of the biggest hangers-on of this time period is embarrassment. I feel embarrassed all the time about how I was and I assume that people remember me in a negative light.
I was moody, judgmental, shy, confused, lonely and lost.
During these years my FB posts would have be the kind that you just get tired of seeing so you block the person so you don’t get the constant drone of negative status updates in your feed.
When I think about these years I am always overwhelmed with sadness for the many memories I have about stupid things I did as a result of my state of mind. I’ve been working on forgiving myself, and giving that girl a chance to heal and find acceptance; strangely, creeping on Facebook kind of helps with this. I’ve managed to ‘rekindle’ a few of these lost relationships and they have been extremely meaningful to me. Every time I send a request to a long, lost, friend and then we message back and forth a bit, and eventually just start to share life through the regular news feed, it helps normalize what feels like an extremely polarizing time for me.
I wish I could sit down with all of my old friends and have an open discussion about those years, explain what was going on in my world, express my regret for how I may have treated them, share my sorrow for all the lost time and then make-up for some of that time and move-forward as friends again.
My mind is full of many happy memories with them. I remember hours and hours of time spent together, laughing, talking about boys, playing stupid games, sleepovers, doing makeup, playing sports, passing notes in school…I see snapshots in my mind of us together on hammocks, acting cool at school dances, playing flag football, flirting and silly things like stuffing our shirts with balloons. The memories are full and rich.
But, then there are years where the memories are filled with pictures of school dances, football games, pep rallies and lunches filled with all these faces growing and enjoying life—but mine is not with them. These memories haunt me like shadows. Life was happening all around me, but I wasn’t in it.
So, I creep on facebook. I try to fill-in some of the gaps. I reach-out. I rekindle. I make progress.
I am so thankful for those friends with whom I’ve managed to reconnect because, the truth is, the folks with whom I grew-up really do mean a lot to me. They were the people that helped shape me into who I am today. They were my original cheerleaders, challengers and role-models. They were my squad, my family, my community. They exist in my memory as a deep and vast resource of life, joy, sorrow, lessons-learned, new experiences, comfort and friendship and I am so thankful for the ability to creep into their lives now and get a little piece of what once was.
257 is a number I never wanted to see on my scale again. And yet, there it was. 2 mornings in the past 4 days. I’m not going to say that it doesn’t bother me at all, because I am disappointed.
But, it’s just disappointment.
I am not feeling guilty, ashamed, regretful or down on myself. I’m not calling myself names and moaning about how I failed again, etc.
Instead, my reaction has been: “Ok, that happened. Yes, it sucks. Move on.”
I feel fantastic. I feel even stronger and more prepared to avoid the pitfalls in the future. I’ve been exercising daily and back on a healthy eating track. I am aware that I need to keep an eye-out for warning signs that I am pushing myself too hard, too fast. I have, once again, increased my veggie/fruit intake and am increasing healthy proteins.
I went through one menstrual cycle without a major crash. I had increased my protein intake leading-up to, during and for a short time after menstruation to ensure that my energy had a bit of a boost. I also doubled my iron supplements during the bleeding time. I was so glad when I didn’t go into the same crash as before.
It’s exciting to me to see all the ways I have grown, the lessons I have learned that seem to be helping me develop a truly, holistic, long-lasting lifestyle that will allow me to really keep it up so that I can, not only, continue to lose weight, but will be able to maintain the loss.
Part of the journey has been allowing myself to make mistakes without beating myself up about it. Embracing failure has really revolutionized my weight loss.
I evaluate the times I’ve slipped by asking myself questions like these:
What were the warning signs? What could I have done differently to set myself up to make a better decision? When did I first realize that I was doing something that wasn’t the best for me? Why didn’t I stop it at that stage? What could I do to empower myself to stop and refocus on something healthy? What do I need to do to prepare for the next time this happens? What are some tools I can have ready to go so that when I see it approaching, I will be able to, easily, grab what I need to avoid the pitfall?
Yes, I’m 257 again, but I’m smarter, more aware, stronger, more prepared and truly am feeling fantastic about the path that lies before me.
seeking life now 