Archive for the ‘favourites’ Category

On the May 2-4 long weekend that just passed, I hosted a party for a few of my closest friends just to celebrate the fact that I could have one (living in Calgary the last two years really put a detrimental plan-stopper on that one) and the beginning of summer.

Over fifteen people came – my highest turn out yet! And I felt it was a great success, mostly, as I realized that we all have so many people in our lives that love us and want to spend time with us – whether we’re single, dating or married. It’s these people that come out from all facets of our lives that we’re able to see just what kind of relationships we are capable of maintaining. I phrase it in that way because it’s hard work to maintain friendships and as the group you’re friends with increases, the harder it is to maintain all aspects of what a friendship entails. The description of what a friendship entails can be grossly misleading as well; depending on whom you’re talking to.

A friend of mine decided to cease being friends with me a couple of weeks ago and I was left hurt, blind sided and (true to form) asking questions to no one in particular about what could have possibly happened. This person was a very dear friend of mine throughout our university years but as we grew older and drifted apart (ranging from what cities we lived in to our careers) our emails remained and the odd phone call was placed. Communication was there between us but we’d definitely lost the closeness we had in terms of breaking news and calling the other on speed dial.
Suffice to say, our friendship hadn’t maintained it’s strength these past few years but I suppose betrayal and loyalty had its hand in the demise of the friendship at the end of the day. I was accused of being dishonest but with no situation – I guess I’m just supposed to know what I did. But I don’t.

For a person who was not in my life on a daily basis, I’m finding it difficult to just let go. I’m constantly wondering what happened and re-thinking everything I’ve done and said over the last month of two. I’m a person who hates being hated. I’m a person who doesn’t like not being liked. Maybe that’s an issue to deal with at another time, but for right now – it feels wrong. Friendships don’t last all the time, I know this, and people grow apart, move on and up or just don’t blend anymore. But I’ve never had a friendship just blow up in my face so quickly with no explanation. We’re done. You’re done. You’re a horrible person. It leaves someone to question – am I?

Could I have done more in the friendship to make sure it didn’t end this way? Probably, I could have done (or not done) whatever it is that garnered me this position of “ex-friend” in the first place – but how are you to know if the other party won’t talk to you?

Many in my life say that dwelling on this situation or even the person shouldn’t matter and I should just move on and rid myself of the negativity. I’m all for it – but tell my mind that. I work in an office alone, being creative and it’s a bit difficult to pull creativity out of the woodwork when you have something blocking it from exposure.

With time, things will improve, I know – they already have, but I can’t help but wonder – if I could go back and do things differently, would I? Probably not. Instead, I would probably go back to the Saturday evening of the long weekend when all the friends that could make it to the cottage, had, and were all eating hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages I had supplied for the party. I stood on the grass watching them like a creep all laughing on the deck and I couldn’t help but smile.

I have amazing friends. I have amazing people in my life that would do anything for me and I’d do the same. I have friends that I haven’t seen in years, yet still make time for me if we need it. I have friends that push me to be the best I can be when I don’t think I have it in me. I have friends that understand my incessant ridiculous love of Sushi and don’t judge. I have friends that will just sit and watch television with me, because I love Cougar Town, even though they don’t. I have friends that love me and fight with me and laugh with me and smile with me. And we fight; I’ve fought with all my friends. The difference is, the friendship is worth way more than the fight and that’s why it’s a hell of a lot easier to maintain.

Is it almost Thursday already? Where has the week flown off to? Summer is coming, I can feel it (despite the odd weather changes that have gone this week) and it’s making me more excited by the minute. The thing that sucks? Weddings that I’m committed to going (and WANT to go to) have me booked on what so far seem to be the best weekends in the city thus far, among the predicament of having a personality and lifestyle that includes wanting to attend every outing that’s possible no matter how much it’ll probably kill me.

For instance, the night of Thursday, May 27th has sequestered itself among three events I want to attend:

1) Strut for a Cure

A night promised to make everybody speak out against Cancer while listening to Dragonette and meeting others in the industry. Plus, the swag bag you get once you leave isn’t bad either. Mostly, it’s just the type of thing I’m loving about living in Toronto. Being able to go to these fundraisers and parties and network my butt off. Problem: I may be dumb, but I scoured that website and could not for the life of me find out when the event starts that Thursday. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem but for someone attempting to plan “a night of a million stops” it is.

2) Carassauga: Mississauga’s Festival of Culture

Of course it has to be the first night my father’s extracurricular activity, FCAM, actually does something that will interact with the community by promoting the integration of the Molise culture in Canada and I have this prior commitment and urge to attend Strut for a Cure instead. Which leaves me feeling guilty. I did, however, design this snazzy advertisement to be included in Carassauga’s 25th Anniversary special edition commemorative magazine they’ll be handing out at the show. The AD itself was inspired by the work my friend and sometimes partner, Emily Bachor of Whylime Design does at Where Calgary magazine.

She’s made me a big fan of the opacity button:

You may think this is no big deal, not being able to attend the opening ceremonies of the Carassauga weekend, as it’s just that – a weekend event. However, this brings me to the dear old commitment number three.

3) Bridal Shower in Windsor, Ontario

My dear, dear friend is getting married. Yay (it’s a sincere yay). But instead of taking up one of my weekends that consist of me waking up at noon and reading PostSecret all day, I will be sitting at a table with other twentysomething friends becoming misty eyed at the thought of my friend getting her happy beginning and me wondering if I’ll have a date by the time her wedding comes around in August – or if I’ll even want one. Problem: It’s basically an entire weekend of visiting and busyness that I’ll have absolutely no time for …

4) Sex and the City 2 Premiere

Now, I know this may sound crazy, with all the fantastic prior engagements I’ve just listed to end off with my disappointment that I will not be able to watch the continuation of the best show ever made followed by the best movie sequel to a TV series ever made but I am. I am disappointed. Mostly, however, because of spoilers. I won’t be able to take it. In addition to reading PostSecret every Sunday, I have this odd, unnatural habit of checking out TheMovieSpoiler.com to see what happens at the end of the latest blockbusters just released. It sort of reminds me of Billy Crystal’s monologue in When Harry Met Sally about being so dark that he reads the end of novels before he starts in case he dies so he’ll always know how it ends.

Problem: even if I successfully remove myself from being tempted to log on, I know it’ll be all around me. When will the next opportunity come that I can see the movie before I read about what happens in the tabloids? In 2008, when the first movie came out, I had to block my sister from my MSN list because she had gotten home from watching the big premiere (she lives in the United Kingdom and had the pleasure of seeing it a full eight hours before I did) and wanted to gush about how amazing it was. She’s like that.

All in all, I think I may just be whining about unnecessary things. But I can’t help it – I want to do it ALL!!!!

Which, in case you don’t know me personally, is exactly what I’ll end up doing.

Hillary Clinton addressed Americans last week.

I don’t know what it was about, or when exactly, but I remember her making a joke about the last twenty years of her life and she made a quip of the things her husband has put her through. She laughed, the audience laughed, her daughter standing right behind her laughed – and so did Mr. William himself. And I remember turning my head while getting ready for work and looking at the screen, at these such serene, sincere faces and wondering how on earth they got passed everything.

I know it’s been like eleven years, maybe more, maybe less – but how did they do it? No one separated, no one got divorced, no one did anything. Except maybe forgive. The media followed that story more than they followed how well Mr. Clinton was running the country yet when the questions arose to Hillary – was she staying or going – no one could get an answer. She was polite, calm and poised. She was private, most of all, and made her decision. And everyone judged. Everyone. Whether they were for or against the commitment to stay; everyone had an opinion.

In her memoir, she states that “no one understands her like Bill does” and love was the reason that she stayed. That’s all she said. That’s it, and whether you liked it or not, you were just going to have to accept the decision because in the end, it was nobody else’s life but her own. I think we forget that more often than not.

I’ve definitely taken a step back and looked at this past year a bit differently. I’ve been forced to realize that you can’t always trust someone, but you should always try. And forgiveness, it’s important. And although I believe it’s important for the one who needs to be forgiven, I think the concentration on it should really be within the person who has to do the forgiving. In the end, it’s really only doing more harm than good to focus on what was done, and not what has been done since.

My mom’s a grudge holder. I’m beginning to see myself as some part of a grudge holder as well, and it scares me!! The thing is, I noticed that the grudges I keep, or the things I remember the most, are usually with the people who matter the most with me. Why is that? Because I don’t care about the people I don’t hold grudges with, what they’ve done doesn’t matter – I can always get passed it. I can only wish that it was reversed.

It’s not impossible, I know this – I just have to let go. Can time heal all wounds if it’s continually thought about? Can you just fast forward yourself to a time when nothing in the past (at this time) means anything anymore? It can even mean something, it just doesn’t mean everything?

Mistakes are always made, and we all make them – but can they be forgiven, really and truly? If I’m asking myself that question, maybe I’m on the right track to trying to find out.

My phone smells dingy. My fingers smell like a hospital. I’m sitting in the critical care unit of the hospital basically waiting for my grandmother to die. Isn’t that awful? I’m waiting for my grandmother to die. We all know it’s going to happen. We all know that we’re to share the jewellery she’s left my cousin, sister and I. We all know that according to my grandmother we’re all to find each other and eat together, as it’s very important. She doesn’t want to suffer she says. She’s working so hard to stay alive, so she can lie in a hospital bed where her biggest achievement of the day is wiggling her toes. She’s tired, sick of it, she continues. So we wait. We sit and wait, periodically sleeping or going for McDonald’s runs and take turns going to hold her hand and hold back tears because somehow, in between the swelling, hospital gowns, face mask and IVs, she still manages to look like the cutest person you’ve ever seen.

It’s someone else’s turn, to go and hold her hand, gaze into her semi-vacant eyes and hope for great advice and wisdom to escape her lips. We think we can relax, sit for a while, while we wait. But no. Creaky doors open, uncompassionate doctors, nurses and volunteers climb through the miniature hallway that has become our living room for the time being, whispering apologies as they clasp stethoscopes and scurry through. We don’t sit long, just a small break, we have to enter the corridor of sick patients, impatient EMS workers, all bored, all sick, all waiting. Walking past into the emergency room, where beds are occupied by crying people, waiting to see the doctors, nurses – whoever has the pills – nobody’s phased anymore. Curtain number two. Bed number two. He’s been reduced to a bed number, because they can’t identify you any other way. Her bed is number nine. Ninety-two, twenty-nine. What was that movie with Jim Carrey, the Number 32? Or 29? I can’t remember, that’s what hospitals do, I think. I don’t know what day it is. I think I’m still jet lagged. I’m tired; I know that, regardless of anything else. Visitors in the hospital are probably more disoriented than the patients are.

My grandmother is in critical care. She is a DNR. That means a Do Not Resuscitate patient. When my grandmother has another heart attack, it’s a ‘when’ situation, not ‘if’, she will probably die. My grandfather is on bed number two, in the emergency room across the hall. His kidneys are dilating because his bladder cancer has progressed at an extraordinary rate. He must have emergency surgery to flush out the blockages in his kidneys so that they’ll start working again. We have to wait for that to happen. We had to have a conversation with him, a repeat one about resuscitation; he is now a DNR as well. They sit, waiting, patiently, impatiently. To die. And we sit, waiting, for something to happen. Unfortunately that something is to die. Isn’t that sad? But what else are we supposed to do? We wait. Read books, visit and listen and talk and laugh and try to joke and try to get our minds to think of something else. It isn’t possible, really. It’s all we think of nowadays. Death. And funerals. And machines. And priests. And rosaries. And everything. And I’m just tired, too.

With all this talk about university ending and embarking on the beginning of something new – a graduated experience – I’ve obviously been doing a lot of talking with some of my closest friends on the topic of our impending changes and it has amazed me just how different all of our lives are going to be taking. Seriously, all of us have such a different outlook of what we’ll be doing after this year – scratch that – after next month. It still boggles my mind. Even though I’m still going to be in some distance education classes over the summer, I’m a part of this – done. What’s amazing to me is just how different my friends and I are in terms of our futures – yet somehow, that’s what brings us closer together.

I’m living with a future lawyer, good friends with a potential partner of a business, a bank teller, future public relations advertisers, an artist, a general slacker and giving advice to those who don’t want to continue with school at all – and then there’s me. We’re a great group of friends, and I think our differences have been what’s been kept us so close all these years, or brought us together. And now, unfortunately, we’re all leaving each other. As one of the major differences between us all are hometowns and distance. Once the end of April comes, all we’ll have is memories of times never forgotten and distant conversations on MSN and catch up emails.

That’s okay, I mean, it’s contact at least – but then what happens? I’m wondering about all these new people I’m going to meet once I go home, start at a new school, start at a new job – all that. I’m excited, really. It’s just crazy, that’s all. I felt like just yesterday I was graduating high school, working at Coles, preparing for my trip to Italy in March. Now I’m preparing for my trip to England (oh, right – I’m going to England in May to visit the sister) and graduating from university. I’m going to have a degree. It baffles my mind among scaring me.

The thing is, on Tuesday night I had a conversation with someone who told me he was taking a break from school – going to come work in Toronto for a year to save money, then travel to Europe for a year and then finish school – because he doesn’t want the normal life. When I asked him to elaborate he explained he didn’t want to go to school to find a job right after and have a family and all that because he didn’t want to live like that. I told him I felt like I was having a conversation with my sister circa two years ago. He explained how he didn’t want to get married and have relationships or kids or anything. I laughed and told him about my sister again. I also told him not to plan that out because he never knew who he’d meet in his future – who he’d want to spend his future with – because he couldn’t guarantee that wasn’t going to happen – and gave him the example of the sister and her fiancé, again. He accepted that he couldn’t predict the future but he definitely wasn’t going to sit around and wait for it to happen, or encourage it in anyway and that point, I completely agreed with. It then got me to thinking about my life and what I’m choosing to do after school.

Am I planning for this normal life?

I’ve often said how I hate the idea of me moving around so much because I’ve been doing it for the last four years and I’m sick and tired of it – completely happy to be going back to live with my parents, get a graduate degree and save money. Is this the normal life? I’m not looking for a relationship, but I’m open for one. I always said I wanted to travel but somehow I haven’t made any plans for it, saved any money or made any time. Is this the time that I’m supposed to do this stuff? Travel, live life, be irresponsible, right? The whole conversation got me to thinking about plans and even though we don’t have definite, written out to-do lists – are the plans still somewhat there?

I decided earlier on this week that with the impending graduation, move, changes in life – I was going to live this last month of school based on action instead of planning. Live with fun instead of caution. Be prepared instead of procrastinate with school work. The most important one mantra I decided to follow: follow my heart instead of my head – even if for only thirty days.

So I did. I have been. And so far I’ve been given more surprises than I’d ever expected but I’ve been smiling for most of it too – which has also been the best part – and maybe, it’s the way we’re supposed to be living our lives all the time – not with a thirty day time limit.