Internal Conflict

I'm having huge conflicts in myself about what to invest in (with my hypothetical money, of course). My interest in furniture is really blossoming, and particularly for locally-made or ecologically-friendly pieces which tend to be on the pricey side.

There's part of me that believes investing in furniture, clothing, or even art, is vain and materialistic. Then there's the other part of me that just wants to be surrounded by carefully crafted, beautiful things -- everything from furniture to cutlery.

Something outside of me says that investing in experiences, such as trips, is more reasonable, or have a longer positive impact. But then again I think "hey, sitting in a fabulous chair every night can also have an awesome impact!" Particularly when it looks like this Olivier Desroches chair:



With a nice throw blanket and a good book; what's not to love!?

There is this other idea floating around in my head about patience, carefully assembling collections... but, it takes so much time to 'fall on' a great piece. Thrifting takes devotion!

Anybody out there have thoughts on this?

Strange Things People Say

We had a goodbye party this weekend at P's place for one of his friends (and I made the best playlist of my life). His friend's girlfriend, whom I've seen many many times, but never actually talked to struck up a conversation with me at some point.

It started harmlessly enough, but then turned a little bit strange. She wanted to know what I really thought of P's mom, because she has interacted with her over the many years she's been around and over that period of time, has formulated her own views. The way I see it, his Mama is very complicated to me. So generous and giving, but sometimes it seems to veil high expectations which often creates high pressure situations. I'm pretty easy going with her. I don't have a strong personality in the same way that this girl does, so I suppose that makes things easier for me. I usually feel like because she does so much for me, I should basically do whatever she wants me to do. She never asks for the Moon or anything, but maybe just a higher level of energy than I usually float on.

Since P and I are still in a young relationship, this kind of thing can go on and on as she pleases. I suppose the tricky part comes (as with anyone) when kids enter the picture. I'd be curious to see how that plays out, should it ever happen.

But the weird thing that made me want to post today is this thing the girl said: "You know, it seems like P's really in it with you. The relationship will only end if you decide it has to." Or something to this effect.

I really don't know how to interpret this. I'm not sure I believe it. But frankly, I just find it a really weird thing to say! So much so that I'm not really sure how I feel about the statement.

Am I somehow supposed to be happy? Am I supposed to feel in control?

It's just too weird. It's like saying to someone that they've succeeded in whipping their boyfriend. That their boyfriend is somehow their property now.

I don't want to whip anyone, or to own anyone. Or to be whipped or owned.

In other news: a children's book about Audrey Hepburn -- how about that!

Nice.

I like the part when he talks about how there's no common style thread anymore, how anything goes, and how attitudes change over time. I was wondering if where we were going fashion-wise in this new decade, since the last one was a recycling of previous ones. I guess not knowing is okay too.

Long-distance Relationship

This table makes me faint.



I think I'm in love.

All Coming Together

I haven't posted for a while, that much is obvious.

Lots of things have been happening, few seem meaningful enough to write about.

Basically, November and half of December are a fog to me -- school stress in general. I plugged through my papers and exams and ultimately passed everything. I'm still sort of stunned that everything got done.

One weekend in December, P and I went to his parents' place. It was strange for me, I was overcompensating for something I didn't know at the time. P had been going through some things, some life changes and stresses. We had a conversation and it quickly boiled down to him not knowing if he saw me in his future or not. During the conversation I was strangely calm. I absorbed everything, even though I was hurt. This line sent some insecurities off in me, but also explained a lot of P's recent behavior (a bit distant, a bit less enthusiastic).

We shared a few more moments before I left to go to the Maritimes, and they were always falling short of (let's face it) my expectations. The time that I was at home, I was distracted by all these thoughts in my head. Mostly, I was feeling ashamed. I felt like I've talked to my girlfriends about their relationships and pointed out the moment when they needed to exit a thousand times, but now, I was in this situation, wondering if I was convincing myself of things, wondering if I was in denial about others, and wondering if my relationship would blow up in my face. I regret if i've ever made anyone feel like I knew something they didn't, because clearly, I don't. Now I fully appreciate how a relationship's uniqueness is matched only by the uniqueness of the needs of the ones in it.

I left the trip home earlier than usual to come back and spend new year's with P, and also to potentially talk to him about what I was feeling. I got home, and somehow, everything was fixed. He was really present, attentive, affectionate, enthusiastic and all the other good things I feared had gone away. I didn't want to bring anything up at that time, because I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to say, but I knew it would come back to bite me in the butt. I resolved to bring the issues up at another time.

That time was this past weekend. Another strange comment was made that brought those not-so-old feelings back up to the surface and that did it. I told him everything I could remember from the things I thought before: "when does this future begin? do you understand that it makes me uneasy? what do these comments mean? I feel like you don't really mean them, but they are symptoms of something else. Can't we just take it one day at a time? Etc. etc." I don't remember what was said, but basically it was an honest and open conversation and it made me feel better.

I feel better today, I feel like everything that needed to be said was said, and I understand which parts of this conversation are related to me and which are related to him.

This whole weekend pre-conversation (I kept it until the very last minute, of course), we spent working on one of his projects for his friends. They used to make movies in their teens (several in fact) and he wanted to finish backgrounds in a few and make DVD menus for them all. He asked me if I wanted to design the menus. Of course! Now that i've been equipped with a new laptop (a refurbished macbook, decked out with extra RAM and all the Adobe software I could dream of -- courtesy of sweet P) I was eager to put it to work. It was really fun working side by side. He would teach me a few things, I would show him what I knew, and all in all I think something cool came out of it.

It also gave me a chance to see his skills. He showed me this image, which was a collage of images (a temple, some stairs, some mossy statues, trees, bushes) from all different sources, and throughout the day he just photoshopped the whole thing into one image. It looked real! I was really amazed. Now I don't know how I will ever trust anything I see on film.

In other news, school is better and more interesting this semester which makes me keener to be organized. I had an interview at my dream job (Moment Factory) and I'm pretty sure i've landed an internship for the summer.

I've been working a lot on some graphic stuff for school and work, which is awesome. It's amazing how much energy I have to do this stuff.

I went to yoga tonight for the first time since December -- it was rough. I feel like i've taken 100000 steps back. I'm scared (of hurting myself, or my knees) and tense and not as stretchy... i've got to get back into it and now!

I wish I would've made this poster:



Instead I made this one:

Strange Fruit

I had a strange feeling last night. The word that came to mind was Compassion. I realized I didn't know what it meant anymore. And that meant I wasn't applying it as a guiding principle of my life anymore. This was not a fun realization.

Don't get me wrong, I don't go around being zen or anything and calling it compassion, but there is a sense of inner peace that I usually have that has somehow escaped me. The direct result of this is drama in my head.

I realized I had so many expectations for this year, for this school, for me in school, and they've all promptly blown up in my face. I'm also confronting how I cope with these disappointments. I think there's part of me that doesn't like to admit how much I rely on the people around me. And now I just feel like an island, in the middle of nowhere, lost, unsure and disappointed in myself for having had so many expectations, from my school, from the people around me, and from myself.

I'm not living up to the ones I set for myself, and what's happening is that I'm relocalising that disappointment to other places in my life... notably with P, lately anyway.

I've been feeling like he's very distant. I've had this feeling for a few weeks. I think it's the feeling of the novelty wearing off. He just doesn't seem as enthusiastic as before and I don't know if it's related to me or something else. I just feel that there isn't the same level of effort as before, in the sense that, previously, every email I sent, no matter how aimless, got a response. I feel he's not as affectionate as usually -- and he was extremely affectionate, so any decrease is instantly noticeable. I sort of confronted the issue last night in a strange conversation I didn't want to have for a while. Somehow we were talking about moving. He asked me, not seriously, if I wanted to move in with him. I answered no, because his room is too small, and suggested, not seriously, that he move in with me, because I have two closets. He said, no and that he needed his own space and didn't see himself in this appartment, and that he didn't feel he was at a point in his life when he thought he wanted to move in with me, and then said, not seriously, it'll never work. Something in that touched a nerve. I immediatly turned away, and while he was making sweet sounds to lure me back, I said 'you're always pushing me away'. Then he asked for some examples (not in those words, but that was the general idea) and I couldn't find any. I said it was a feeling. I said I felt like I was always making things happen. Then he started listing things... New York - my idea, South Caroline - his parents idea, the cocktail party - my idea, etc. I think he saw that I made a point. Today we went out for breakfast at Beauty's before I had to get to school. He said 'are you going to the Maritimes this summer?' I said yes. He said 'do you want to go by car?' (implying that he would come too) and then he talked about wanting to go to Halifax and saying that I could pick where I wanted to go. The conversation felt like he was trying to make up for something. I don't know if I should be happy about that.. or what.

I feel like good relationships take some kind of effort to keep them awesome. And I feel like right now I'm carrying most of the load. I accept that people go through things and sometimes they need their partner to carry their load for a little bit, but.. there's something in that that makes me feel like i'm not a partner.. i'm just there.. carrying something.

I just don't feel connected. To anyone. Or anything. So I don't know if this distance is actually in him, or if it's just my perspective that is skewed.

I feel like I need people around me because I can't get everything from him, nor do I want to.. but there's no-one around (for their own good reasons, no doubt).

For the first time in my life, I feel like people at school don't want to be friends with me. That makes me go on the defensive and think 'well i don't want to be friends with you anyway!'.

I don't like that feeling.

I'm not being compassionate. I'm disappointed in myself for being able to be. I'm disappointed that I had so many expectations.

I'm trying to accept all this with an open heart. Being compassionate towards myself is the first step and I know it... but somehow I'm blocked and everything is dramatic.

Okay, That's It!

I just want this semester to be over!

aaaaaaaaah

Why can't I focus for more than 8 seconds?! Why do I suddenly care about people from high school on facebook?

aaaaaaaaah

Over. Now!

Baby Crazy

Lately, every time I get really stressed, my mind goes automatically into baby-mode. I don't know why my brain is wired like this, but I keep thinking "If I had a baby, none of this stuff would matter and I would be able to push every aside and devote myself completely to this little life". But the hard, cold reality is that would no happen. I would have all the same stresses, but a baby on top of it!

I really want these baby cravings to go away. Having a baby at my age, and in my situation would not be awesome. I would want my partner to be happy and excited about it -- and this would not be the case, I think. Or, I mean maybe, but probably not.

Go away baby thoughts! go away!

Out of Breath

P made an observation the other day when we were sitting around chatting with his parents. I had just spent the day at TEDxMcGill and was feeling a little quiet after all the presentations of the day. I felt like I didn't really want to talk, I just wanted to be with my thoughts. But with parents around, you've always got to be polite, and for some reason, perky. So I talked a bit about my day and the running themes of the presentations. We moved on to some more tense conversations about P's sister, and how she's dealing with the stress of being far away while starting her PhD. Then P's mother revealed some serious details about her own mother. All in all I felt a little uncomfortable, and I guess a little reticent to say much.

What he noticed was that when I was speaking I wasn't breathing. My whole upper body was constricted. It's something i've noticed in yoga. That when i'm doing hard positions I forget to breathe. The teacher often makes a joke of it asking us if we are still breathing. It's a habit that many people have, to forget about breathing through stress. To forget about breathing through every day.

I've noticed I do that every time I start talking about something school-related, and when I talk to my schoolmates. I use every breath to cram so many ideas in my sentence that I end up out of breath at my last word. It's a very strange feeling. I've always reveled in the moments between thoughts... and now i'm choking myself to get every word out -- words that are, frankly, kind of meaningless.

I did the same thing when talking to him about a paper a few days ago.

I find this very strange, and a little bit worrisome. I've never been one of those people who wanted to talk all the time, but I find at school, everyone is like that. They're all chatty, and some can go on and on for hours. So, it's hard to get a word in.

I'm not sure what to do about it... maybe just think more about it, and talk less.

Maturity

On my way home from school today, biking up the Park hill, I realized my previous post was a complete and utter lie. I have not cut my sugar consumption, I've been eating one Camino chocolate bar per day for the last 4 days! Funny how one little good deed (in my case, eating a carrot and drinking ginger tea) erases all the bad little things.

I've been thinking a lot about the way I eat lately. I think I've pretty much kicked the habit of eating out. I've been on this home-cooking thing for a while now, but it's only in the last few months that i've really gone at it, making meals every day that are nutritious and different. Jamie Oliver's got lots to do with that. And now i've discovered Nigella. Domestic Goddess. Something about these English ways makes everything seem so easy-peasy.

The things that have been falling into place are my attitudes I've carried with me on the backburner since my adolescence. I've finally found a place to shelve those body-image worries. Funnily enough, for the first time, ever, in my life I thought 'Geez -- I hope I don't get too thin!' Don't get me wrong, I'm nowhere near 'too thin', but it's really funny that all these teen worries have finally been mellowed. This is something of a revelation. For those who knew me when I was in my teens, I had as many issues with my body-image as the next girl. Always worried. Always self-deprecating.

I don't want to play the 'blame the parents' card, but really, if they would have pushed me into exercise a little bit more, I think things would have been totally different.

It's funny and a little bit sad that most of the things that I felt so sharply in my teens have had the wind taken out of them. The older I get, the more prespective I have, the more I think about my former self with gentleness and that old 'everybody goes through it' kind of attitude.

I wish we understood that more when we were young. I remember people saying that it would pass, but never really believing them.

So things fall into place as time goes on... how about that?

Falling Into Place

My previous post will be elaborated later. Today I realized the simple joys of ginger. Of course I always new it was delicious, but sometimes we forget these things.

I've been trying and trying and trying to kick my sugar cravings to the curb, and I think today I am a step closer to being okay with be sugar-free. It's amazing how much sugar is in all the things we consume.

Nigella and Jamie are making me appreciate the tangyness of ginger tea, and the sweet crunch of a carrot.

Back to basics baby.

Youth

It's funny how everything falls into place.

Purging

What am I afraid of?

I've been having these meltdowns more frequently lately. I know it's because i'm stressed, about school, but I feel like they're beginning to get out of hand.

What am I afraid of?

Not doing well in school. Being mediocre. Being rejected (especially by scholarship foundations). Being so full of debt that I can't relate to the people around me anymore. Not finding a job I like. Not being strong enough to be proactive about being happy. Losing myself in my stress and fear. Not having ideas about interesting things. Not being curious. Not being ambitious. Losing touch with myself. Losing the people I care about. Being so scared of losing the people I care about that I push them away from me.

Not being able to overcome my fear of expressing my feelings and needs.

I'm afraid that I will be the only source to my unhappiness.

I'm afraid that I silence myself.

--

True fearlessness is not a reduction of fear, but moving beyond it. And discovering fearlessness comes from working with the softness of the human heart.

--

Fears, I acknowledge you. Now let's get on with the show.

Hello Winter

I feel like summer was yesterday, but this morning's snow-covered roofs I saw outside confirmed it was not.

I was talking with Vnss and I told her I felt like being a mom and being paid to blog. All I want to do right now are crafts, cleaning, cooking, rearranging things in the apartment, making things pretty. I had this thought about having a little girl and making dresses for her. Easy ones, since, I can barely stitch.

I didn't work all weekend. I surfed blogs looking for easy d-i-y projects. I made a fabric flower à la Carrie Bradshaw, except mine is made from dark purple velvet (which was not the right fabric for this project). Oh well, next time.

I've been having lots of ideas for projects and things I want to do that are sort of "professional skills" building, but I can't seem to put my finger on any of them. Do I want to start a lecture series? A publication? A one-time event? I'm not 100% sure about any of these like I was about starting the cinema journal last year. I need somewhere to channel this stuff!

P is coming back tomorrow!! I'm so excited!! I almost can't handle it!!

There are too many beautiful things in this world! So many things to share!

Spazzing out 24/7

I put my finger on a few things in the last few days.

I've been feeling generally overwhelmed since I started this program. It's a very powerful feeling. A mixture of fear, doubt, irrational, and some positive things but I can't remember now. That's what I mean. I'm in a constant state of forgetfulness and, as i like to call it, spazzing out. 24. 7.

I don't feel like myself in all this. I'm the one who remembers details. I'm the one who's always on time. I'm the one who makes plans. Not anymore. I don't know who I am anymore.

I don't like this feeling.

And another thing. I'm feeling very strange about communication these days. Most of my good friends are gone from this town, and I find most of the conversations I have in my day-to-day are kind of shallow. I mean, I suppose there's hope with a few people that something will come out of it.. but really, it's just one person, and she has lots of friends, so who knows if i'll fit it.

I feel sad that many of my favourite people are no longer around me, and that i'm not aware of their daily lives. More and more I'm beginning to feel that the only thing you can really be rooted into is yourself, because people come and go, and you have no control over that. And the happiness you get out of life shouldn't necessarily be totally invested in the people around you.

This is a very hard thing for me to say, because i've always believed and known that in life, it didn't matter where I was or what I was doing, as long as the people I loved were around me. Now I don't know what to think anymore... but maybe that's just the grad-school talking.

One thing I do like, is how all this graduate stuff if making me really excited about having a normal life. Cleaning. Cooking. Canning. Being healthy. Being happy with the simple pleasures of life. (Am I turning into a mom already!? uh-oh)

I've been thinking about going to yoga twice per week... that would be super intense for me. Since i've started, i've been walking around more, because my knees don't hurt instantly! I feel like my sanity is always restored when I do yoga. I could use more of that.

I could also use more P. He's in Peru. And although we wouldn't necessarily be spending time together right now, we would be having our little daily chats.

This bed is nice. I like how they prop up their pillows with those big decorative ones.



I really love beds in general. So comfy.

Cheese Please

Did you know fondue is delicious AND fun?

Here I am on P's front steps, ready to go to the market.



The boys walked at a brisk pace -- who wouldn't!? when cheese is involved.



A very serious search began and soon we found...



Cheese!



Definitely worth smiling about.



And voila! Delicious and fun!



Then there was chocolate fondue, what a life!

This week P is in Peru with some friends. It doesn't change much, I suppose it just means my next weekend will be free. Free for me to wrestle with the fourteen-hundred papers I have to write on topics I barely understand.

I should stop wishing time away... I did that a lot during the undergrad and it mostly left me with feelings of unsatisfaction.

I did however make a delicious baked-beef stew today; 3 hours of baking time and totally worth it.

Be here now. Mantra of the week.

He Calls me 'Puppy'

I just had an intense yoga class tonight -- stretching all kinds of legs muscles that should not be stretched. And during the final relaxation, I got a little misty-eyed. I have no idea why or what caused it, I just know that it felt special.

I've reached a point in my life: the point where I feel happy. Actually happy. The kind of happiness that made me have tears of joy (!?) for no apparent reason when I got home.

I spent most of my youth crying for different reasons. I remember having these 'I don't know why' conversations and feeling all the weight of those question marks. I spent that time trying to figure out why I was sad, why I couldn't feel happy, why, why, why.. Today a similar feeling of not knowing the sources of my feelings washed over me, but it was radically different. It didn't have all those other questions attached to it. It just felt beautiful. It felt like I could feel all the wonderful things in the world.

The only thing different about this yoga session from the other ones is that we made the corny 'Ohm' sound. The teacher said we could find some things to dedicate our 'ohms' (which are representative of our practice) to something or someone, so that we hold the tradition closer to our heart. The first thing I thought of when I thought of the dedication were three people in my life, then when I let the thought sit in my mind, I felt like the thing I really wanted to dedicate my practice to was myself, my well-being and my mother. The last time we did the 'ohm' I dedicated them to my well-being, my mother and life in general. I'm not usually into this esoteric stuff, but it felt like the only thing I could dedicate it to. Life. Why not?

It hit me how far i've come. This time last year I was having meltdown after meltdown about my relationship with P, because of my insecurities, and many more other reasons. I'm not ready yet to go re-read those posts, because i'm still not ready to accept that I was that person at some point in life. That I was desperate, that I didn't have perspective, that I asked so much of other people (my friends included), that I was holding everything so tightly I wanted to squeeze all the life out of it.

I've gone back and read a few posts about Vncnt -- the height of my desperation before last September. I look at those with a little more kindness. Sometimes they even make me laugh a little. For better or worse, Vncnt really taught me a lot about who i wanted to be (and who I didn't want to be). I don't think I could have ever dreamed of being here if I didn't live that experience with him.

P called me 'Puppy' this weekend. Affectionately, of course. We have lots of little names for each other, most of them he conjures up, but this one felt particularly right. I do feel like a little puppy around him! Happy and excited and giggly and smiley and a little bit too hyper.

It's really nice.

I'd be the one on the right.

When I grow up..

I still want to be interested in food, I still want to take the time to make healthy meals, I want to be active and in touch with nature, I don't want to think I know everything about anything, I still want to listen, I want to speak and mean what I say, I don't want to be a complainer, I want to make the time to take care of myself.

These are some things I've been thinking about this weekend. I've also been thinking a lot about how i'm becoming more and more like my mother. I remember when I was younger she would make cleaning up our closets and dresser drawers a weekend activity. She would move the furniture in our rooms to make them seem fresh and different. She took care to make the bed with 10, 000 pillows and put baby powder between the clean sheets.

I've noticed I've get great satisfaction from cleaning up the pile of clothes sitting in my closet, rethinking how to optimize my storage. I make my bed with the same care my mother took to smooth out all the wrinkles and make the sheets tight.

I know that I have no idea how children will change my life, but I really, really hope that I will still be able to do things with care for them and when they are around. I don't want to go to quick fixes most of the time. I want to connect with them through these activities.

The older I get, the more old-timey I'm becoming - wanting to make things homemade as much as possible. I don't think this is bad thing, but I'm still unsure of how I will be able to negotiate this with a full-time job later on.

Another thing is friends. The more time passes, the more I see how relationships become the center of people's lives. It seems like nowadays when I have free time, it's almost always spent with P. I love spending time with him, but it also makes me wonder: where my girls at? I want to keep my friendships even when I'm old and have a family, but this seems next to impossible when everyone is busy and far away.

I'm not saying I'm giving up hope, i'm just saying, I miss you!

Next Year

I just had a radical idea. There's part of me that wants to propose to P that we move together to Vancouver after I'm done my MA.

He has expressed interest in going back, since he was born there.

Right now I'm in the mood for an adventure!

There's a first time for everything

I just spent the whole day studying -- from 11am until 10pm with only a few breaks to eat.

It's the strangest thing I've ever done. Writing notes, making flashcards, checking to make sure I know something and if I don't making a note of it. Using our nifty blackboard (that was the best part)!

I feel very stressed and a little bit not stressed about these upcomings midterms. Everybody keeps saying: don't worry about it! But when I went to a study session last week and didn't know a fraction of what the other girls knew, I got worried.

I really wonder how much of this is useful.

Going with the flow either way though, and it kind of feels good.