Tag Archives: Writing

That Space in My Head

30 Tuesday Nov 2021

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I used to walk a lot. When I lived in Toronto, I walked everywhere, all the time.

I loved walking very early in the morning, or later at night – things change then. The city is different.

I would listen to music and play through a million different worlds in my head.

I never realized, until now, that this is where I have lived for most of my life – in my head.

However, as the pressures of adult life increases and presses in on me, I have had to vacate my head living space, to make room for lists of things for which I am responsible.

Despite this, I continue to fight to try and find my way back to that place – where daydreams are vivid and there are a million possibilities just waiting for my next step to play out.

My brain has become stagnant. It doesn’t write anymore. It doesn’t play anymore. It doesn’t create anymore.

Even dreaming takes work these days. It used to be as real and as constant as each breath.

I have been struggling to figure out what I want my life to be. I thought that I was trying to figure out who I am, what I want, etc. but, I am beginning to wonder if I’m really just searching for dreams.

Where do dreams exist?

Do they live in music? In movies, books, or television?

Do dreams begin to fade as you get older?

I enjoy being a dreamer – I love living in a land where anything is possible, where the stories are live and full of adventure, fear, love, wonder, and hope.

Music brings me to that place.

“Be the hand of a hopeful stranger / You’re scared but you’re strong enough / Be the light in the dark of this danger / ‘Til the sun comes up” (A Safe Place to Land, Bareilles/McKenna)

“I’ve been twisting and turning / In a space that’s too small / I’ve been drawing the line and watching it fall / You’ve been closing me in, closing the space in my heart / Watching us fading and watching it all fall apart” (The Pieces Don’t Fit Anymore, Brammer/Robson/Catchpole)

“When you’re walking downtown / Do you wish I was there? / Do you wish it was me? / With the windows clear and the mannequin’s eyes / Do they all look like mine?” (Come Pick Me Up, Adams / Alston)

“I’m down I’m down on my knees I’m begging for all your sympathy / But you (I’m just an illusion) you don’t seem to care . . . You humble people everywhere (I don’t mean to hurt you)” (Time, Kreviazuk, Wattenberg, Maida)

I walked down our street at 1:30am this morning and I dreamt. I breathed, I ran, I soaked-up the diamond snow and I began to make some space in my mind to rent it to myself occasionally until I can completely renovate and move back up there.

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Remember What You Love to Do

28 Monday May 2018

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It’s so easy to get sucked-into the stresses of life and lose-track of the things you enjoy. I love to write, but I tell myself that I have to do all the other “important” things first before I can focus on the things I enjoy, and then more often than not, never get-around to doing what I love. I do not stop to take time for myself.

I am currently taking 3 condensed university courses and struggling just to keep-up. Not to mention the fact that I have a precocious 4 year old who is keeping me on my toes.

On my desk there sits a daily calendar that offers vibrant, artistic, inspirational quotes. I was underwhelmed by today’s message, until I glanced-over to it while stressing about all that I had to do and all that I have been unable to do, and realized that its message was one I desperately needed to read: “Remember what you love to do.”

Remember what you love to do.

Don’t get lost in all the stress. Don’t fill your day with only that which has to be done, but take time to do something that you want to do – something you enjoy. Don’t forget to do what you love to do.

And, I love to write.

Yes, there are assignments, tests, quizzes, books to read, papers to write, rooms to be tidied, chores to be done…

But, in all of these things, I should never forget what I love to do – because, if I do that, I forget myself.

We all have responsibilities, chores, tasks and maybe even deadlines, but it is so important to not allow these things to become who we are. They are not more important than taking the time to do something we enjoy, to express ourselves and allow ourselves to rest and to be renewed.

Therefore, even though this is just a little note, I sat still and allowed myself to write before running-off to fulfill my next responsibility and in so doing, discovered that taking 5 minutes for myself not only allows me to remember what I love to do, it also reminds me to love who I am and to be kind to myself.

Remember what you love to do.

Authentically Me – Dec. 1998

08 Tuesday May 2018

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When you are someone who journals, you have the great advantage of being able to go-back and answer that nagging question: Was I always like this?

I have begun exploring my old journals and while there are many in this world who would say that I am still a baby, a mere 37 years young, I believe that there is a wealth of information and experience to be mined from within their covers.

When I was eighteen years old, I felt like I was so old and so mature. There are valid reasons for this because, by my eighteenth year I had already lived what felt like several lifetimes and been-through an incredible amount of unusual and phantasmagorical life-experiences.

The following journal excerpt is from December 17, 1998 and is the very first entry in a new journal. It is incredible for me to read because it sounds like something I could have written last year.

As I explore my journals, I will be sharing excerpts that I find interesting. They will be in original form, non-edited and raw. One day I will put more meat to the content, but for now, I start with the bones.

Dec. 17, 1998

Sometimes I worry about my sanity. I am terribly confused. I no longer know what I believe in, what I like and dislike and very plainly, who I am. I find myself liking things and not liking things on the basis of the opinions of others. I also find myself not liking things just because they are liked and popular. I feel that if I like something that is popular I am saying that I am a crowd follower and cannot form my own opinions. I do not know how, but I have to discover myself again and find out who I really am. Unfortunately, I feel as though I have to hit absolute bottom before I can. It is too easy right now to simply ignore things and pretend things are alright. I have to feel, believe and know that it is absolutely necessary that I find myself.

***

Wow, kid.

The idea that, at eighteen, I felt that I had to try and “discover myself again,” boggles the mind. I see eighteen year old’s now and they are like babies, so young, innocent, and unaware. I thought I was a “worldly” eighteen year old, but I didn’t know jack. I was a baby like them once; I just didn’t know it.

They say that ‘hindsight is 20-20,’ and this entry is an obvious red flag to me knowing now that it would be a mere few months later that I would overdose on pills in an attempt to find relief from all of these troublesome thoughts and feelings.

Like I said, I was naïve. I knew nothing of what was yet to come and had a flimsy grasp, at best, on all that had been.

Nonetheless, there is a beautiful trait that pokes through the mess – and that is the constant intent to be genuine. I do not now, nor have I ever, wished to pretend that I am somebody I am not.

“I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other” (Jane Austen, Jane Austen’s Letters).

The yearning for authentic sincerity that I often wore like an inconvenient abnormality, has been rubbed by the intimate hands of time and is showing itself as one of my most beautiful strengths.

An Unholy Confession

06 Sunday May 2018

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She knelt down at the bench that was drenched with the tears and prayers of all those who had come before her. This was a seat that was not meant for resting, but for wrestling. Sinners came to this bench to confess, to plead, to repent and to rise in salvation.

The black shoes she had been wearing restricted her from attaching herself to the bench in the manner she thought necessary to get close to God, and as she twisted-around to remove them, her black uniform skirt got caught on the sleeve of her tunic, revealing more of her regulation nightshade pantyhose than modesty would approve.

She did not know that he was watching her.

He was always watching.

She went about her business, preaching and teaching the word of God, leading the people in praise and worship of the creator she loved so very much. She was just doing what she had been called to do, the best way she could.

In her twenty-one years of life she believed she had a firm grasp on the world, and was wise and mature to its ways.

When he came to her and confessed his love, she found herself spinning and dizzy, unable to find her bearings and questioning what she had believed to be the safest place.

“My wife knows about you,” he confessed. She felt sick to her stomach and wanted to turn from him and run. Unable to speak, he continued, “I’ve been talking to my therapist about you.”

Was she, honestly, hearing him correctly? It seemed as though she had been thrust into another world, like a twisted version of what one might find beyond the wardrobe.

How could she have let this happen? What had she done to lead him on?

She stared back at him, in shock and disbelief and noticed for the first time how many wrinkles his face held and the glisten of his silvery white hair.

He was in his 50’s and had kind, but lost, eyes. She had always appreciated his gentleness, but now she felt like he was a predator. He was no longer a sheep, but a wolf in sheeps clothing.

“I love you,” he made his confession plainly.

She tugged at her white blouse nervously, suddenly feeling naked and exposed. In her mind she was pleading with him to stop looking at her. She felt undressed by his stare.

“What am I going to do?” he asked.

She said nothing. Frozen to the ground, unable to move, the world rang in her ears and she remembered what it felt like to want to disappear.

She never wanted to be seen by a man again.

To Realize this Dream – I Need the Power of the Force

04 Friday May 2018

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I lost something somewhere along the way. Was it when I left the realm of the religious and spiritual? Was it when I had my son? Was it long before then when I had moved to a foreign country to be with a man I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be with?

When did I lose the ability to be still? To sit quietly, contemplating, or not, but being still, restful and at peace?

Sitting still now hurts my head. It is laborious and requires effort and discipline. I have to convince myself that it is a worthwhile endeavor and that it is producing something positive; that it is not just a waste of time.

I also used to write; I wrote almost every day between 1994-2013. I have a large stack of journals leaning-against our lounge wall reminding me of how I used to pour my life into words on a page. This was a religious act to me, just as prayer once was. It was part of my communion and communication. When I no longer believed that there was anyone out there with whom to communicate, I stopped writing.

I didn’t realize that I had been communing and communicating with myself all-along and that it was this relationship that had been lost.

I am on a mission to seek that which was lost – to find, once again, that communion with myself. I am also taking a terrifying journey to and through the past as I traverse my old journals, typing-up entries and key moments of my life. As I have begun organizing the journals chronologically, I have already experienced intense feelings of shame, embarrassment, anger, disappointment and fear.

I used to think that I was so mature – so wise and worldly. When in truth, I was such a child, and so naïve. It is going to be a taxing journey, but a worthy one. Who is this person from my past? More accurately, who are these people? The little girl, the young girl, the teenager, the early adult, the woman contemplating marrying a man she wasn’t sure she loved, the mother-to-be. Who is she?

I am determined to reconnect, at least, to the writer and the dreamer in her. To dream and to write again and to, finally, begin the task of chronicling and connecting stories into a piece of work that can be published.

I want to be a writer more than anything. It will never happen if I am not putting-in the work required to get me there.

So, mark this date on your calendar, the day I set-out to bring my life, my experiences, my thoughts, my relationships, my embarrassments and heartaches into a story in ink and on paper.

May the 4th be with me.

post-note: Though I have come to loathe this day and all the Star Wars posts, comments, jokes, memes, etc., I could not ignore the fact that this is the day in which I made some bold steps towards realizing this long-time dream of mine, and I need the power of the force behind me on this one.

A New Year

05 Friday Jan 2018

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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 feel great.

2018 is going to be a good year.

Just Get Off Your Ass and Do It

06 Friday Oct 2017

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I’ve been in a rut. Life has changed time and again over the past 5 months and I think I am just starting to feel the effects of it now.

As of April: I left my job of almost 7 years, we packed-up our house and moved from the city to the country (moving-in with my parents), I stayed home and took care of my son for 4 months, my husband got a job with hours that have drastically altered our family dynamic, my son started school, I can’t get a Doctor (despite calling the clinic almost every week to see if anyone is taking new patients), I got a casual job at the local school board and I have also started school as a full-time University Student (working on my BA in English through Queens Distance).

I tend to be the type of person who just ‘puts my nose to the ground’ and gets-on with things, without dwelling much on the enormity of things, because I fear that if I let myself think about it, I will drown.

The problem?

I take it out on my health. Instead of allowing myself to think about it, feel the emotions and work-through it all, I eat. I eat them away.

The truth is, I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted and tired and I feel overwhelmed.

Take a look in my rubbish bin next to my desk and you’ll find it overflowing with cans of Diet Pepsi, Cheezies and Aero wrappers. Granted, they are the mini Halloween-sized ones, but when you’re eating 5 of them at a time, I think that excuse loses its strength.

People often comment on how they think I am brave, or strong, but the reality is – I’m a wimp.

I hide my fear in food.

I’ve been trying to get myself ‘back on track’ for months now. I was doing so well with things until around my Birthday, followed by my Mom’s, when I let myself fall off the rails.

This is the longest stretch of time in almost 2 years that I have been lost in this place where I feel out of control and at a loss to bring myself back into focus.

This has troubled me, and I’ve been embarrassed to write about it because, on paper, it would seem that my life is pretty good. I should have things together.

My husband has a solid job.

My son is in school.

We have settled-into our new living arrangement (for the most part).

I have a casual job.

I’m finally working-towards my lifelong dream of obtaining a University Degree. Not just obtaining the degree, but being a full-time university student.

This should be my time of life. I should be excelling and ‘walking on clouds’.

So, why do I feel like I’ve been dragging myself through a mud run?

Guilt plays a part in it. I feel a sense of guilt for not being at a full-time job. I feel like I’m never, fully, doing my share. I’m not the sole-caregiver of my child, I’m not busy cleaning the house/yard and taking care of my folks all day long, I’m not out at a job earning a pay cheque all day.

I’m working on something that feels selfish.

I know there are plenty of arguments as to why this is not selfish. But, I’ve never really been good at putting myself first.

I want to write. I want to be a writer.

And, as you can tell by this post, I need the help.

My thought process is all-over the place. I jump from one topic to another with very little transition. I have a lot to say, but can never seem to get it down, or out quickly or clearly enough.

I saw a piece on a news channel recently talking about the current top books, or something. I didn’t really hear what the piece was about because I saw the image on the screen, a stack of recently published books, and heard a freight train in my head as tears filled my eyes.

I wanted my name, my book, to be on that screen.

Filling up from the bottom of my toes and spilling-out the top of my head was this overwhelming desire to create something, in print, that would speak to people. Something that would be read and loved and carried all dog-eared in book-bags everywhere.

I have always written. I have over 30 notebooks and journals.

I have a lot I want to say.

I also want to feel better – physically.

So, as I sat here tonight (trying to focus on my homework), one thought just kept running-through my mind – “JUST GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO IT.”

So, here I am.

Again.

Seeking New Daydreams

08 Thursday Jun 2017

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When I was younger I spent the bulk of my time lost in daydreams. There was a steady stream of stories and scenarios swirling-around inside of me. These thoughts did not feel detached from me, as I lived through every one with full emotion and feeling.I would have numerous conversations and encounters with crushes as well as heated debates (which I always won) with adversaries on important topics such as LBTQ rights or the plight of small/family-run farms.

I have lost some of this, which I suppose is a good thing since I’m not sure how I would have been able to make it in the world as an adult if I continued to spend all my time lost in my imagination. But, I miss the feelings that these reveries brought with them. My life held so much magic to it back then.

I have been attempting to try and regain some of this magic while keeping a foot solidly in the land of adult responsibilities and duties.

I am trying to be intentional about stopping to soak-in some moments in time. Today, as my son was using the toilet, I stood at the bathroom window while the breeze caused the soft white curtains to dance around me, and stared at the backyard. I tried to memorize each tree, how they looked, how they responded to the wind and took a deep breath to try and memorize the smell of the moment.

The things that are missing from these moments, however, are the questions of who I will be, what I will be doing, who I might be with, and what of my hopes and dreams might I have already fulfilled. Many of these questions have now been answered. The excitement of the unknown, mostly when it comes to the romantic things, has passed.

Truthfully, most of my daydreams were about romance. I liked to imagine a million scenarios that could happen between me and whichever person I had feelings for at the time. It was a fun world in which to live, but one that doesn’t really exist as a married person anymore.

The truth is, I love to imagine and I love to pretend. I do, sometimes, play-out imaginary scenarios of what life might be like if I were married to another person. I will picture us in a house, doing married-life things, just as my husband and I do now, and see how it plays itself out. But, these daydreams are difficult to maintain as I always have to, inevitably, face the question about what the imaginings mean for my husband and child. The old carefree dreams of this romantic are now hopelessly real and complicated.

I miss the nervous thrill of never knowing ‘if it will ever happen’.

It happened.

That’s done.

As a result, I have been starting to dig into my mind and try to find other unknowns, other questions and things that make me feel a similar kind of enjoyable anxiety towards. I want to make some more space for daydreaming again and living here gives me the perfect opportunity to do so.

Now, I just have to find some new daydreams.

Taking Time for Me

07 Wednesday Jun 2017

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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’m Back…

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

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I took a break from writing for a little bit. I was going-through treatment for non-recovery PTSD and the idea of trying to write on top of everything was a bit overwhelming to me. I was worried that everything I would write would be trauma-focused and that’s not really the point of what I’m trying to do here.

Now that I’ve completed the 10 weeks of treatment, plus a little down-time I gave myself, I’m good to go again. I will write about my experience with PTSD and treatment, etc. But, it will just unravel naturally, as I feel the urge to write about it.

I’m excited to be back to writing and cannot wait to get back into regular practice.